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HOLINESS 



THE BIRTHRIGHT 



ALL GOD'S CHILDREN. 



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By Rev. J. T. CRANE, D.D., 

OF THE NEWARK CONFERENCE. 



Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for His seed remaineth in 
him : and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. — 1 John iii, 9. 



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New yoi\K : ^ 
NELSON & PHILLIPS 

CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 
1874. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

NELSON & PHILLIPS, 

in the Ofirce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE, 



CHRISTIAN THOROUGHNESS, or 
completeness, is a subject which deeply 
interests all who believe God's word and desire 
to walk in its light. Around the subject are 
questions which we cannot evade, if we would, 
either in our own thinking, or in converse with 
other minds. Some of these the writer has 
been led to examine, as he had opportunity; 
and in regard to them has reached conclusions 
which are, at least to him, more restful than 
the previous uncertainties. 

It might possibly be appropriate for me to 
apologize for so brief an utterance on so great 
a theme. It would in no wise be difficult to 
make a larger book. The subject is vital and 



4 Preface. 

attractive ; and it touches the Christian system 
at so many points, both doctrinal and experi- 
mental, that wide fields of thought open in 
every direction. Still, the aim of the author 
has been not to enter every inviting avenue ot 
research, but to point out what seems to him 
a plain path, in which all who love the Lord 
Jesus Christ may walk in harmony ; and that 
a greater number of readers may be reached, 
brevity, rather than amplitude, has been made 
the rule of the discussion. It will be easy to 
enlarge the plan at any future time, if need be 
This little volume is placed in the hands of 
the Christian reader with the earnest desire 
that it may, if possible, help him to value his 
Birthright still more highly, hold it by faith 
with firmer grasp, and press on, more eagerly 
than ever, to the attainment of the most exalted 
privileges which it places within his reach. 

J. T. C. 

Newark, New Jersey, Feb., 1874. 




(i=k 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. The New Life 7 

II. Wesley's Search after Truth 18 

III. A New Departure 32 

IV. A Sad and Singular History 46 

V. The Error: Three Arguments against it... 63 

VI. The Error : Two More Arguments 89 

VII. The Conclusion 119 



HOLINESS 

THE BIRTHRIGHT OF ALL GOD'S CHILDREN. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NEW LIFE AND ITS PROBLEMS. 

JHE great doctrine of the Scriptures, 
of the Reformation, and the evan- 
gelical Christianity of our own day, is 
Salvation by Faith. The apostolic com- 
mission is, Go ye into all the world, and 
preach the Gospel to every creature. He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved ; but he that believeth not shall be 
damned. It is true, something must pre- 
cede the act of faith. The sinner must 



8 Holiness. 

consider his ways, and realize in some 
degree his guilt and danger. He must 
yield to his convictions, be willing to 
forsake sin, and live a life of all obe- 
dience to divine law, and joyfully con- 
sent to be saved by grace alone. He 
that thus feels his guilt, and with a pen- 
itent, broken heart comes to Christ, 
abandoning every other refuge, and 
trusting in him for pardon, peace, and 
all else he needs, shall be saved. No 
matter how numerous, or how aggra- 
vated his sins, he shall be saved. Nay, 
he that thus repents and believes is 
saved. Saul, who three days before was 
a fierce persecutor, breathing threaten- 
ings and slaughter against God's people, 
and exceedingly mad against them, be- 
lieves, and in that same moment is saved. 
The jailer at Philippi who, an hour be- 



The New Life. 9 

fore, drew his sword with the intention 
of plunging it into his own heart, believes 
and is saved. Thus the Gospel of Christ 
is the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believeth. 

But in what sense is the penitent be- 
liever thus saved ? The infinite gift is 
instantaneous. He that believeth not is 
condemned ; he that believeth is saved ; 
and whether man can detect it or not, 
there is a point of time when the peni- 
tent passes from unbelief to belief, from 
death unto life. His condition, up to 
that moment, is one of inexpressible evil. 
He is guilty, condemned, corrupt, help- 
less, the wrath of God resting on him, 
and hell waiting his coming, with its 
eternal darkness and despair. Saved by 
faith, he attains a state inexpressibly 
exalted. He escapes from wrath; for 



io Holiness. 

there is no condemnation to them which 
are in Christ Jesus. He no longer 
trembles in view of his peril, for he can 
say, O, Lord, I will praise thee : though 
thou wast angry with me, thine anger is 
turned away. He is no longer an alien 
from God, but a child, an heir: and the 
spirit itself beareth witness of the new 
and exalted relation which he now sus- 
tains to the King of kings and the Lord 
of lords. So great a transformation has 
been wrought that it is called a new 
birth, and he is said to be born again, 
born from above, born of God. Because 
he is in Christ, he is declared to be a 
new creature: old things are passed 
away ; behold, all things are become new. 
And all things are of God, who hath 
reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. 
The children of God are said to be a 



The New Life. n 

chosen generation, a royal priesthood, 
a holy nation, a peculiar people ; that 
they should show forth the praises of 
Him who hath called them out of dark- 
ness into his marvelous light. Thus 
the divine word describes the great 
transition. 

In regard to the relation which the 
penitent believer sustains to God there 
is little room for controversy. He is a 
child of God and an heir of heaven. 
Living, the divine smile is upon him ; 
dying, he goes to be forever with the 
Lord. Living or dying, he is the Lords. 
But while he is yet on earth, there are 
promises and exhortations in regard to 
the new life within him which may well 
arrest his attention, and fill his soul with 
lofty aspirations. He is urged not to 
rest content with the beginnings of the 



12 Holiness. 

Christian life, but to go on unto perfec- 
tion, to grow up into Christ in all things, 
and from a child become a man; and 
having Christ dwelling in his heart by 
faith, and being rooted and grounded in 
love, to comprehend with all saints what 
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and 
height ; and to know the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge, and be filled 
with all the fullness of God. To all who 
are born of God it is said, Be ye therefore 
perfect, even as your Father which is 
in heaven is perfect. ' These expressions 
certainly point to things beyond, to pos- 
sibilities of attainment which are in ad- 
vance of all that the beginner has yet 
known. What, then, are these possibili- 
ties of the new life ? To those who are 
entering the promised realm of rest, it 
would seem that there remaineth yet very 



The New Life. 13 

much land to be possessed. Where lies 
the goodly heritage ? Where is the way 
by which we shall go up ? What enemies 
beset the path, and with what weapons 
shall we fight them ? By what token 
shall we know when we begin to tread 
its richest soil ? 

The Methodist Churches, both in En- 
gland and America, hold, and have always 
held, the doctrine of Christian Perfec- 
tion. The Methodist Episcopal Church 
has never faltered in its advocacy. Our 
standard theological works teach it, and 
scarcely a year passes without some new 
publication on the subject. Before a 
minister can be received into Conference 
membership he is called upon to answer, 
before God and his brethren — and is 
expected to answer in the affirmative, 
too — these three questions : " Are you 



14 Holiness. 

going on to perfection ? Do you expect 
to be made perfect in love in this life ? 
Are you groaning after it ? " We an- 
swer these questions affirmatively, and 
think that we are sincere ; but how few 
feel assured that they have gained the 
gracious state ? Hardly one in twenty 
of our ministers professes it, either pub- 
licly or privately, so far as I can learn. 
We preach it occasionally ; but among 
our people its confessors are still fewer, 
in proportion to numbers, than in the 
ministry. Even among our bishops, from 
1784 to the present day, confessors are 
as hard to find as in any other class of 
our people. The very princes of our 
Israel have been silent in regard to their 
own experience of it. The apostolic 
Wesley never professed it. In the sixty- 
fourth year of his age, and the forty- 



The New Life. 15 

second of his ministry, he published, in 
one of the leading journals of London, 
a letter containing these words : " I have 
told all the world I am not perfect ; I 
have not attained the character I draw." 
Bishop Asbury, who, if possible, exceeded 
Wesley in the toils and sufferings of his 
faithful ministry, did not profess it. The 
saintly Hedding, approaching the grave 
by lingering disease, always calm, and 
often joyous in view of death, was im- 
portuned to profess it, and declined. 
Myriads of men and women among us, 
whose lives were bright with holy light, 
saints of whom the world was not worthy, 
never professed it. A few have done it 
in the past, a few do it at the present 
time ; but we cannot hide the fact that 
they are very few, compared with the 
multitudes who do not. 



16 Holiness. 

And why are they so few ? Such a 
state of things, on so vital a point, and 
one to which attention has been called 
so often and so earnestly, must have a 
cause of corresponding magnitude. The 
Church, as a body, is indeed living at a 
lower level than it ought ; but when was 
it otherwise ? The twelve, chosen by 
Christ himself, had a Judas among them. 
The general Church was no purer in 
apostolic times than it is among us at 
the present day. In our own branch of 
it, so far as I can learn, gross offenses 
against the laws of morality occur less 
frequently than in former times. Our 
people, the poor in their poverty as well 
as the rich in their abundance, never 
gave of their substance so freely for all 
good purposes as now. Where is the 
missionary-field which has been aban- 



The New Life. iy 

doned because none could be found to 
face its perils ? Our oldest and most 
observant ministers tell us that former 
times were no better than these. No ; 
it is not because the Church has fallen 
from her steadfastness. Planted as she 
is by the rivers of waters, she ought to 
have stretched up into loftier stature, 
and spread abroad a richer crown of 
foliage ; still, the blight and the mildew 
are not upon her. Boasting is excluded ; 
but we are not yet called to hang our 
harps upon the willows, and mourn over 
the waste places of our Zion. Why, then, 
has this doctrine so small a place in the 
preaching of the ministry, and the expe- 
rience of both ministry and people ? 

2 



CHAPTER II. 

WESLEY'S SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 

JHE problem is not easily solved. 
It is not probable that any one mind 
can solve it to the satisfaction of all oth- 
ers. This, however, need not deter the 
humblest lover of Zion from uttering his 
opinion. On the contrary, it lays upon 
him an increasing obligation to do it. 
The thought which he utters, even if it 
be not the truth for which search is made, 
may suggest the truth to some more for- 
tunate explorer, just as certain rocks, of 
little value in themselves, guide the ge- 
ologist to the veins of treasure beneath. 
I am persuaded that the piety of the 
Church has suffered loss, and serious 



Wesley's Search after Ttutk. 19 

injury has been done, by inaccurate rep- 
resentations of precious truths. This 
will, perhaps, be best shown by a some- 
what extended sketch of the doctrine of 
Christian Perfection, as taught among 
the Methodists. 

Mr. Wesley, in a letter written long 
afterward, tells us that early in his relig- 
ious life he " began to see that Chris- 
tians are called to love God with all their 
heart, and serve him with all their 
strength, which," he adds, "is precisely 
what I apprehend to be meant by the 
scriptural term perfection. After weigh- 
ing this for some years, I openly declared 
my sentiments before the University in 
the sermon on the 'Circumcision of the 
Heart/ About six years after, in conse- 
quence of an advice I received from 
Bishop Gibson, ' Tell all the world what 



20 Holiness. 

you mean by perfection/ I published my 
coolest and latest thoughts in a sermon 
on that subject." 

Here, then, we have the distinct state- 
ment that what Mr. Wesley, at least as 
late as the year 1756, the date of the let- 
ter alluded to, believed in regard to 
Christian Perfection, he advanced in the 
sermon on the " Circumcision of the 
Heart," in 1733, and repeated, perhaps 
more accurately, in the sermon on " Chris- 
tian Perfection," in 1740. In the first ser- 
mon he preaches the doctrine that "the 
distinguishing mark of a true follower of 
Christ, of one who is in a state of accept- 
ance with God," is a "circumcision of the 
heart," "which," he proceeds to say, "is 
that habitual disposition of soul which 
in the sacred writings is termed Holiness, 
and which directly implies the being 



Wesley's Search after Truth. 21 

cleansed from sin ; from all filthiness 
both of flesh and spirit." It will be ob- 
served that he gives this exalted descrip- 
tion, not of the mature Christian, but of 
the Christian who is "in a state of ac- 
ceptance with God;" and he expressly 
repels the claims of all others to be 
Christians. 

Six years or so afterward, as he tells 
us, seeing that his views had been mis- 
understood and misrepresented, he pub- 
lished the sermon on " Christian Perfec- 
tion," which was designed to be a full and 
accurate statement in regard to the 
transformations which grace works in 
the heart of the true believer. This state- 
ment he styles, in 1756, "his coolest and 
latest thoughts" on the subject of Chris- 
tian Perfection. What, then, were the 
fixed opinions of John Wesley on this 



22 Holiness. 

important subject in 1756, twenty-three 
years after the sermon before the Univer- 
sity, and only five or six years before 
the great agitation in regard to Holiness 
which forms so remarkable an era in the 
early history of Wesleyan Methodism ? 

In this sermon Mr. Wesley first shows 
in what sense Christians are not per- 
fect. They are not free from ignorance, 
nor from the mistakes which originate 
in ignorance ; nor from infirmities ; nor 
from temptations ; but there is not one 
word in this part of the sermon in regard 
to the removal of the remains of the sin- 
ful nature, no allusion to any residue of 
depravity left in the soul in the hour 
when it is born of God. 

In the second part of the discourse, in 
which Mr. Wesley shows in what sense 
he holds that Christians may be perfect, 



Wesley's Search after Truth. 23 

he devotes six and a half pages, exactly 
one half of the sermon, to a definition of 
what he terms " the glorious privilege of 
every Christian ; yea, though he be but a 
babe in Christ." And what is this glori- 
ous privilege? In Mr. Wesley's own 
words it is to be " so far perfect as not 
to commit sin." This conclusion, he de- 
clares, is "in conformity to the whole 
tenor of the New Testament." Arguing 
the point at length, adducing the passa- 
ges of Scripture which he deems proof 
of the doctrine, and explaining those 
which might appear to be against it, he 
reaches the deliberate conclusion that 
whosoever is born of God is so far per- 
fect as not to commit sin. 

What, then, is the additional grace, 
the distinguishing characteristic, of "the 
perfect man," who has grown up to the 



24 Holiness. 

measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ? It would seem that Mr. Wes- 
ley has placed the state of the babe in 
Christ so high that it must be hard to 
point out differences between the two ; 
to show the practical advantages of the 
perfect Christian, without depreciating 
those of the soul just born of God. He 
did find a real difficulty in drawing the 
line, and especially in maintaining it, 
clearly and distinctly, in the minds of 
his people. 

In this sermon he says that the mature 
Christian is "so far perfect as to be freed 
from evil thoughts and evil tempers." 
He admits that the perfect man has temp- 
tations of various kinds, but says that he 
overcomes them. But this is exactly the 
same thing which he affirms of the babe 
in Christ. Both are subject to tempta- 



Wesley's Search after Truth. 25 

tions, and both have the victory, and sin 
not. The only real distinction affecting 
the question of practical obedience to 
God is, therefore, a theoretical one. He 
assumes that the babe in Christ has still 
an evil nature, a source of temptation 
within, from which the mature Christian 
is delivered. The perfect man can say 
with Paul : " I am crucified with Christ : 
nevertheless I live ; yet not /, but Christ 
liveth in me. " Words," he adds, that 
manifestly describe a deliverance from 
inward as well as from outward sin." 

But if both the babe in Christ and the 
perfect man are assaulted by tempta- 
tions and overcome them, and are free 
from sin, what matters it whence the 
temptations come ? What advantage 
has the mature over the beginner in the 
matter of practical obedience ? 



26 Holiness. 

Wesley himself manifestly fails to 
maintain his theoretical distinctions in 
regard to the two classes of Christians. 
In his sermon on the " New Birth " he de- 
fines it to be "that great change which 
God works in the soul when he brings 
it into life ; when he raises it from the 
death of sin to the life of righteousness. 
It is the change wrought in the whole 
soul by the almighty Spirit of God 
when it is created anew in Christ Jesus; 
when it is renewed after the image of 
God, in righteousness and true holiness ; 
when the love of the world is changed 
into the love of God ; pride into humili- 
ty ; passion into meekness; hatred, en- 
vy, malice, into a sincere, tender, disin- 
terested love for all mankind. In a 
word, it is that change whereby the 
earthly, sensual, devilish mind is turned 



Wesley's Search after Truth, 27 

into the mind which was in Christ 
Jesus." 

Here the state of every one born 
of God is portrayed in such exalted 
terms as to make it difficult to describe 
any higher state of grace. 

Again, in his sermon on " Patience," 
published in 1785, he describes the new 
birth in these glowing words : " There 
is, in that hour, a general change from 
inward sinfulness to inward holiness. 
The love of the creature is changed to 
the love of the Creator ; the love of the 
world into the love of God. Earthly 
desires, the desire of the flesh, the de- 
sire of the eyes, and the pride of life, 
are, in that instant, changed by the 
mighty power of God. The whirlwind 
of our will is stopped in its mid career, 
and sinks down into the will of God. 



28 Holiness. 

Pride and haughtiness subside into low- 
liness of heart ; as does anger, with all 
turbulent and unruly passions, into calm- 
ness, meekness, and gentleness." 

In the earlier part of Mr. Wesley's 
ministry, he said comparatively little in 
regard to Christian perfection. The 
burden of his sermons was sin, the atone- 
ment, salvation by faith, Christian duty, 
and the exalted privileges of all who are 
born of God. Still, he saw the term Per- 
fection in the Scripture, and believed a 
state of grace to be designated thereby 
which is attainable and desirable. He 
seems, however, to have believed that it 
was the result of growth, and of long and 
faithful service ; and that few attain it till 
a little before they leave the world. 
Thus, in his sermon on the " New Birth," 
he says that " it is undeniably true" that 



Wesley's Search after Truth, 29 

sanctification is " a progressive work, 
carried on in the soul by slow degrees, 
from the time of our first turning to 
God." 

At the Conference of 1745 the sub- 
ject was considered, and the following 
conclusions reached ; that although sanc- 
tification is not ordinarily attained till a 
little before death, and Paul himself was 
not sanctified when he wrote his first 
epistles, we ought to expect it sooner. 
It was agreed that sanctification should 
scarcely be preached at all to those who 
are not pressing forward ; and when it 
is preached, it should always be done 
by way of promise — by drawing rather 
than driving. In regard to the way 
in which this religious state should be 
sought, it was decided that " the general 
means which God has ordained for our 



30 Holiness. 

receiving his sanctifying grace are, keep- 
ing all his commandments, denying our- 
selves and taking up our cross daily ; 
and that the particular are prayer, 
searching the Scriptures, fasting," and 
partaking of the Lord's Supper. This 
was the way, and the only way, which 
Wesley and his preachers at that time 
felt at liberty to recommend. 

About this same date Mr. Wesley 
found several members of his societies 
who professed to have attained Chris- 
tian Perfection. In 1744 he conversed 
with two persons in London who said 
that they were "saved from all sin." It 
is very clear that he was at a loss what 
to think of the experience which they 
related. He writes : " Why do I not re- 
joice and praise God" in behalf of such ? 
" Perhaps because I have an exceedingly 



Wesley's Search after Truth. 31 

complex idea of sanctification, or a sanc- 
tified man." He concludes, however, 
that whether they are saved from all sin 
or not, it is right to rejoice in every evi- 
dence of their true piety. The next year, 
1745, he met two or three at Bristol, and 
two or three more at Kingswood, who 
made the same profession. 

At the Conference of 1747 the ques- 
tion was again discussed, and the conclu- 
sion was formally recorded that the in- 
spired writers rarely either address or 
mention those who are entirely sanctified ; 
and therefore it behooves the ministry, 
in public, at least, rarely to speak in full 
and explicit terms concerning entire 
sanctification. All this shows that Wes- 
ley's opinions on the subject were up to 
this date exceedingly indefinite, if not 
perplexed. 




CHAPTER III. 

A NEW DEPARTURE, AND NEW QUESTIONS. 

tT is not given to any one man to dis- 
cover all truth. One lays the foun- 
dation, others build upon it. One man, 
like the Genoese explorer, guided by a 
half truth, commits himself to unknown 
seas, and discovers a new continent ; but 
years elapse, and the aid of other busy 
minds is invoked, before the outlines of 
the new world are traced, and its dimen- 
sions known. Wesley's contributions to 
the practical religious thought of the 
age are invaluable. The doctrinal sys- 
tem which he taught is steadily gaining 
ground in all directions, and the indica- 



A New Departure. 33 

tions seem to be that it will ultimately 
become the faith of the general Church. 
Still, amid the incessant toils of his min- 
istry he could not be expected to com- 
plete all that he began. Moreover, fear- 
less as he was in the search after truth, 
he was also conservative, and relin- 
quished an old opinion with great reluc- 
tance, especially if he found it incorpo- 
rated in the teachings of the Church of 
England. 

Taking all these things into consider- 
ation, it is not matter of surprise to find 
that Mr. Wesley's views of Christian 
Perfection were not well defined at the 
beginning, nor even at the end; and that 
his various utterances, scattered, as they 
are, over a space of fifty years, furnish 
no complete and consistent theory on 

the subject. He evidently began with- 

3 



34 Holiness. 

out a theory, without any labored at- 
tempt to show the place which Chris- 
tian Perfection holds in the Christian 
system, or to trace its outlines with accu- 
racy. He said, in 1756, that in his ser- 
mon on the " Circumcision of the Heart," 
preached before the University in 1733, 
is contained all that he ever taught in 
regard to the doctrine of Perfection ; 
but he predicates the character which he 
describes of every " true follower of 
Christ," every one " in a state of accept- 
ance with God." It seems not to have 
occurred to his mind at that time, what 
he was understood afterward to teach, 
that the state of grace which he thus de- 
scribes belongs only to mature Chris- 
tians, and that the great mass of the true 
followers of Christ are far below this 
standard. 



A New Departure. 35 

After a time he began to feel the ne- 
cessity of recognizing St. John's distinc- 
tion between " little children " and " fa- 
thers " — the babe in Christ and the mature 
Christian ; and then he employed the 
term Perfection to designate the at- 
tainments of the mature Christian only. 
The sermon on the "Circumcision of the 
Heart" gives no hint of two distinct class- 
es of true believers. Mr. Wesley saw 
the necessity of greater accuracy of state- 
ment, and therefore, in 1 740, in the ser- 
mon on " Christian Perfection," sought to 
draw the line. He still held that the 
babe in Christ is " so far perfect as not 
to commit sin;" but represents the "per- 
fect man " as occupying a higher posi- 
tion, in that he is delivered from " evil 
thoughts and evil tempers." But even 
in this very sermon, he ever and anon 



36 Holiness. 

forgets the line which he is trying to 
draw, declaring that " every one that 
hath Christ in him the hope of glory, 
purifieth himself even as he is pure," and 
stating, as the conclusion of all his rea- 
sonings, that " Christians are saved in 
this world from all sin, from all unright- 
eousness ; that they are now in such a 
sense perfect as not to commit sin, and 
to be freed from evil thoughts and evil 
tempers." He admits, however, that 
"they may have thoughts of evil," and 
may also feel anger, though not " in the 
common sense of that word." At this 
period, and for years afterward, Mr. 
Wesley's idea of Perfection seems to 
have been that it is the maturity of the 
Christian graces, the result of growth, 
the fruit of long and faithful service. 
But it was an age of controversy ; and 



A New Departure. 37 

soon Wesley found his doctrine assailed 
from various quarters. His devoted 
friend, the famous Whitefield, wrote to 
tell him how sorry he was to hear that 
Mr. Wesley was teaching that a " sin- 
less perfection " is attainable in this life. 
" There must be," said he, " some Amal- 
ekites left in the Israelite's land to keep 
his soul in action, to keep him humble, 
and to drive him continually to Jesus 
Christ for pardon." Wesley, doubtless, 
smiled at the absurd idea of sin's being a 
remedy for sin ; but an argument from 
another quarter could not be disposed of 
with a smile. He was strongly attached 
to the Church of England, and open and 
emphatic in his declaration of loyalty to 
it. And the Ninth of the Thirty-nine Ar- 
ticles of Religion declares that " Original 
Sin is the corruption of the nature of 



38 Holiness. 

every man ;" " and this infection of na- 
ture doth remain, yea, in them that are 
regenerated." In adjusting his teachings 
to the doctrine of this Ninth Article, he 
was under the necessity of admitting that 
at least something of the old corruption 
of nature may remain in those who are 
" born of God," and who are " so far per- 
fect as not to commit sin." 

No sooner was this conclusion clearly 
apprehended than it gave rise to ques- 
tions which could not fail deeply to in- 
terest all who were hungering and thirst- 
ing for righteousness. How long must 
this "infection of nature" remain in the 
soul ? Must we contend with this in- 
ward foe all our lives ? The article quot- 
ed does not answer these questions ; and 
Wesley, on the basis of certain passages 
of Scripture, concluded that although 



A New Departure. 39 

the great majority of Christians are not 
saved from it " till a little before death," 
and even " Paul was not when he wrote 
his first epistles," yet no such limitation 
exists, either in the Scriptures or in prac- 
tical Christian experience ; and complete 
holiness of the inner nature as well as of 
action may be attained and enjoyed in 
this life. Here was, at last, something 
on which to found a clear distinction be- 
tween the two classes of believers ; and 
the babe in Christ was described as one 
in whom " inborn sin " was not yet whol- 
ly destroyed ; while the " perfect man in 
Christ Jesus" was entirely freed from it. 
But the instant this conclusion is 
reached it becomes the starting-point 
of new questions. Is deliverance from 
"the seeds of sin" desirable? Most 
assuredly. What, then, are the condi- 



4-0 Holiness. 

tions of success in seeking this grace ? 
What states of mind must precede ? Do 
we grow into it by patient obedience, or 
seize it at once by an act of faith ? What 
evidences accompany the grace when at- 
tained? It was impossible to evade 
these questions. He who teaches that 
depravity remains even in the regenerate 
soul, but that he may be freed from it, 
and that freedom from it is of priceless 
value, must tell how deliverance is to be 
secured. Thus, little by little, the theory 
of a second distinct work grew up, and 
assumed what I cannot but regard as an 
unscriptural form. 

It began to be taught, first, that the con- 
viction of remaining depravity must pre- 
cede entire sanctification, just as convic- 
tion for sin precedes justification. Thus 
Wesley, in his sermon on " Patience," 



A New Departure. 41 

says that the true believer grows in holi- 
ness as he grows in faith, " till it pleases 
God, after he is thoroughly convinced of 
inbred sin, of the total corruption of his 
nature, to take it all away." Vol. ii, p. 222. 
It was taught, secondly, that this great 
grace is to be sought by faith, and is 
attainable at any moment. Thus Wes- 
ley, in 1785, wrote to Rev. Freeborn 
Garrettson : " The more explicitly and 
strongly you press all believers to aspire 
after full salvation, as attainable now by 
simple faith, the more the whole work of 
God will prosper." Wesley declared, 
thirdly, that the one who is entirely 
sanctified may have " the testimony of 
the Spirit, witnessing his entire sanctifi- 
cation as clearly as his justification ;" and 
that, in fact, no one ought to profess it 
till he has this divine witness. Thus the 



42 Holiness. 

mode of representing the doctrine be- 
came logically complete. 

It is clear that these three points were 
new to Wesley himself, and were not 
taught by him until many years after he 
began his ministry. The sermon on the 
Circumcision of the Heart shows no 
trace of them ; nor does the sermon on 
Christian Perfection. Dr. Whitehead, 
the biographer of Wesley, says: "Though 
Mr. Wesley had so long held the doctrine 
of Christian Perfection, he had not always 
held that this state of mind might be 
attained in one moment; much less that 
a person might attain it in his novitiate ; 
nor do I know that there were any pro- 
fessors of it before 1760, except when 
death was approaching." He also says 
that " the manner in which it was now 
preached, pressing the people to expect 



A New Departure. 43 

what was called the destruction of the 
root of sin, in one moment, was most 
certainly new. I can find no trace of it 
before the period at which I have fixed 
its introduction." In point of time, then, 
the general inculcation of these new 
ideas on the subject of Perfection agrees 
with the occurrence of the singular 
events which we shall soon narrate. 

But we must confess that to the last 
Mr. Wesley's methods of stating and 
enforcing the doctrine were indefinite. 
Some things would seem to indicate that 
in the latter part of his life he was dis- 
posed to abandon the residue theory. 
When he prepared, in 1784, the Articles 
of Religion, which he wished the Ameri- 
can Methodist Church to adopt, he 
copied the first part of the Ninth Article 
of the Church of England, but rejected 



44 Holiness. 

the latter part, which declares that the 
"infection of nature" remains in the re- 
generate. 

The next year, 1785, only six years 
before his death, he published his ser- 
mon on " Perfection," which, therefore, 
may be regarded as his final judgment 
on that subject. And in this sermon he 
says not a word about "inbred sin" or 
"the seeds of sin" in believers. He de- 
fines perfection, negatively, to be salva- 
tion from all sin. But he says in this 
very sermon, in two different places, 
emphasizing the words by the use of 
italics, that by " sin" he means " a volun- 
tary transgression of a known law" This 
he calls " my sense of the word," " which 
I apprehend to be the scriptural defini- 
tion of it." Defined positively, Perfection 
is explained to be the maturity of the 



A New Departure. 45 

Christian graces, the completeness of the 
Christian character. This he regards 
as the best part of the work wrought, 
saying that salvation from all sin is 
" only the least, the lowest branch of it." 
Thus he resolves Christian Perfection 
into two elements, to wit, freedom from 
transgression, and the maturity of the 
Christian graces. This looks like an 
abandonment of all former views in re- 
gard to the inner work wrought ; and we 
should so construe it, were it not for the 
utterances in the sermon on " Patience," 
already quoted, which belongs to the 
same date, 1785. 




<2f3S© 




CHAPTER IV. 

A SAD AND SINGULAR HISTORY. 

BOUT the year 1758 some of the 
preachers began to give Christian 
Perfection a more prominent place in 
their sermons, and now and then, it 
would seem, depreciated justification 
and its concomitants in order to exalt 
sanctification. One was accused of say- 
ing that all who are not entirely sancti- 
fied are under the curse of God; another, 
that if any one dies before he has at- 
tained perfection he surely perishes. 
These errors Wesley deemed it expe- 
dient to repudiate in a published letter, 
and also in the Conference Minutes. 



A Singular History. 47 

The subject was canvassed in the confer- 
ence of that year, and the result was two 
conclusions: 1. That " those who think 
they have attained " that state of grace 
should speak of it " with great wariness/ 
2. That young preachers, especially, 
should not speak in public of perfection 
" too minutely or circumstantially, but 
rather in general and scriptural terms." 
Most young men, thus admonished by 
the highest ecclesiastical authority to 
which they are subject, would hardly 
deem it prudent for them to attempt the 
subject at all. 

In 1 761 an agitation began in regard to 
Christian Perfection and swept through 
the societies like a mighty wave of the 
ocean. In the beginning it seemed to 
promise great good ; but the ebb of the 
tide was as sudden and overwhelming as 



48 Holiness. 

the flow, and the result disastrous. Why 
was the work unsound, and the effect 
bad ? I cannot resist the conviction that 
it was because it was based upon un- 
sound principles. It is certain that 
about this time there was a change in 
the modes of explaining and enforcing 
the doctrine. 

The Conference of 1745 defined the 
means of attaining Christian Perfection 
to be earnest obedience to all God's 
commandments, and the diligent use of 
all the appointed means of grace. Now 
the idea began to prevail that entire 
sanctification, or Christian Perfection, 
can be attained at once by an act of 
faith at any time, not only by the veteran 
who has long been growing and ripen- 
ing in the graces of the spirit, but by 
the convert of yesterday. The doctrine 



A Singular History. 49 

began to be preached, as we have seen, 
that before the regenerate man can be 
made altogether holy he must be "thor- 
oughly convinced of inbred sin, of the 
total corruption of his nature f that it is 
the privilege of those who are entirely 
sanctified to have the testimony of the 
spirit, witnessing their entire sanctifica- 
tion as clearly as their justification ; and 
that none ought to profess it till they 
have this divine evidence. That these 
last-named features of the doctrine are 
scriptural I see no proof; but whether 
true or erroneous, they are evidently 
exceedingly liable to abuse. They were 
generally preached, however, and a gen- 
eral agitation followed. During the year 
1759, and for two or three years suc- 
ceeding, great attention was paid to 

the doctrine of Perfection, and the pro- 

4 



50 Holiness. 

fessors of this state of grace were numer- 
ous beyond all former example. In fact, 
the profession up to this time had been 
almost unknown. Wesley, as we have 
seen, conversed in 1744 with two persons 
who professed to be saved from all sin ; 
but he evidently was at a loss in regard 
to the value to be attached to their expe- 
rience, whether to consider it real or im- 
aginary. Now, professors were numbered 
by hundreds and thousands, and were 
found, not only in London, Bristol, and 
other large cities, but in the remotest 
parts of the work. Mr. Wesley went to 
London to examine the matter for him- 
self, and found, as he says, " six hundred 
and fifty-two members who were exceed- 
ingly clear in their experience, and whose 
testimony he could see no reason to 
doubt." The societies in that city num- 



A Singular History. 51 

bered, in 1762, twenty-three hundred 
and fifty members. 

But soon roots of bitterness appeared, 
George Bell, who had professed conver- 
sion three years before, professed entire 
sanctification in March, 1761, and imme- 
diately began to hold independent meet- 
ings, in his own way declaring that no 
one could teach the sanctified except 
those who were themselves in that state 
of grace ; and that God was to be found 
only among these his saints. Thomas 
Maxfield, one of Wesley's first preach- 
ers, and for a time one of the best, 
adopted the same views and helped on 
the mischief. Wesley went to see him, 
and even attended some of his meetings ; 
he wrote to Bell warning him not to de- 
preciate justification as he had been do- 
ing, and then tried with rare patience and 



52 Holiness. 

forbearance to avert disaster, but in vain. 
Bell at last turned prophet, and declared 
that the world would come to an end on 
the 28th of February, 1763. Wesley felt 
compelled to forbid his exhibiting his 
vagaries in the meetings of the Wesley- 
an societies. Then came rupture and 
wreck. Maxfield and Bell formed a new 
society of their peculiar followers, and 
denounced Wesley as one incapable of 
teaching them anything. One of the se- 
ceders called him a hypocrite ; another 
accused him of being an enemy of 
the doctrine of Holiness; a third heard 
him preach, and then said that if the 
devil had been in the pulpit he would 
not have preached such a sermon. Still, 
large numbers of those who professed 
sanctification remained faithful, and, for 
a time at least, were not moved from 



A Singular History. 53 

their steadfastness. Maxfield carried off 
about two hundred members of the Lon- 
don society, founded an independent 
congregation and continued to minister 
to them for twenty years, and then died. 
Bell, when his prophecies in regard to 
the end of the world were proved false, 
not only gave up the office of prophet, 
but abandoned all pretense of religion, 
went into politics, and died an infidel. 

Meanwhile Wesley was laboring earn- 
estly and patiently to save all he could 
from the delusion. The great mass of 
his people, both preachers and members, 
were still steadfast in their piety, and 
loyal to him as their pastor ; but the 
minds of preachers and people were 
much disturbed in regard to the doctrine 
which had been perverted into such an 
instrument of evil. Wesley had the sa- 



54 Holiness. 

gacity to see just where one abuse be- 
gan. These wild teachers had sought to 
advance the work of entire sanctification 
by depreciating the religious state of 
all who failed to attain and profess it. 
They talked as if to be born of God is 
nothing; as if those who are able to pro- 
fess nothing more than this ought to hide 
their heads with shame, and contemplate 
their religious condition with sorrow and 
alarm. 

Wesley employed the press to correct 
the evil. He published in 1763 his ser- 
mon on " Sin in Believers," a sermon 
whose full import we see only when we 
read it in connection with the times and 
circumstances. It was evidently written, 
not to discourage those who are hunger- 
ing and thirsting for righteousness, but 
to cheer those whose hearts have been 



A Singular History. 55 

made sad by false doctrines ; who have 
been told, with all assurance, that so 
long as they detect the presence of an 
evil thought in their souls, no matter 
whence it comes, or how promptly and 
utterly they reject it, they are in the gall 
of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. 
He held as firmly as ever, and asserts it 
in this very sermon, that he who is bom 
of God doth not commit sin. But if this 
be so, then the pride, anger, love of the 
world, which he says may still be in the 
heart of the believer, are simply tempta- 
tions to pride, anger, and love of the 
world. Bell and the other enthusiasts 
professed to have become so holy that 
they were out of the reach of these temp- 
tations, and denounced all who failed to 
attain the same fancied heights. Not 
content with a second work of grace by 



56 Holiness. 

which, as they claimed, their hearts were 
wholly purified from evil tempers, they 
began to profess a third, by which their 
minds, they said, were lifted above the 
reach of evil thoughts. Wesley's sermon 
on "Sin in Believers" is designed to be a 
refutation of these unscriptural notions. 
Wesley also went to London, and by 
his personal presence and counsels 
sought to save his people from the de- 
structive effects of religious error, this 
"high strained perfection," as he calls it 
in one of his letters. He spent a whole 
week in October, 1763, endeavoring "to 
confirm those who had been shaken as to 
the important doctrine of Christian Per- 
fection, either by its wild defenders or 
wise opposers." He succeeded in great 
part in saving his Societies ; but there 
were widespread and permanent effects 



A Singular History. 57 

which he could not prevent. The follies 
and excesses of Bell, Maxfield, and their 
followers, created alarm in some minds, 
and prejudice in others ; and a glorious 
doctrine was sorely wounded in the 
house of its friends. The preachers be- 
came afraid to teach it. In May, 1764, 
Wesley wrote to his brother that " the 
frightful stories written from London 
had made all the preachers in the 
North afraid even to mutter about per- 
fection, and of course the people on all 
sides were grown good Calvinists on that 
point." He adds : " It is what I fore- 
saw from the beginning ; that the devil 
would strive by Thomas Maxfield and 
company to drive perfection out of the 
kingdom." 

Some of the professors of entire sanc- 
tification maintained their position. 



58 Holiness. 

Wesley said, a year later, that he thought 
he knew five hundred witnesses of it, but 
as a body they gave way in all direc- 
tions. In his annual visitations in 1765 
he found that about two thirds had 
ceased to profess it. In 1770 he writes 
that of those who professed to obtain 
sanctification hardly one in thirty re- 
tained it. The defection in the London 
society, much under his own care, was as 
bad as in other places. Of the hundreds 
who had been partakers of the blessing 
he doubted, he said, "whether twenty are 
now as holy and as happy as they were." 
Even Mary Bosanquet, who afterward 
became the wife of the saintly Fletcher, 
had lost her confidence and ceased to be 
a witness. Charles Wesley was so pained 
by the scandal which grew out of the 
operations of Bell and his disciples that 



A Singular History. 59 

he took a position which was construed 
into opposition to the whole doctrine. 
John Wesley himself was perplexed and 
distressed. Dr. Dodd, one of his clerical 
opponents, said in one of his publica- 
tions : "A Methodist, according to Mr. 
Wesley, is one who is perfect, and sin- 
neth not in thought, word, or deed." 
Wesley replied to this, " Sir, have me 
excused. I have told all the world, / am 
not perfect ; and yet you allow me to be 
a Methodist. I tell you flat, / have not 
attained the character I draw. Will you 
pin it upon me in spite of my teeth ? " 
Nor did he, to the latest day of his 
life, make any public profession, nor, as 
far as can now be ascertained, any pri- 
vate profession of the kind. The let- 
ter to Dr. Dodd is dated March 26, 
1767. 



60 Holiness. 

In May, 1768, he writes to Charles 
Wesley a letter of six pithy lines : 

" I am at my wits end in regard to 
two things : the Church and Christian 
Perfection. Unless you and I both stand 
in the gap in good earnest the Method- 
ists will drop both. Talking will not 
avail. We must do, or be borne away. 
Will you set shoulder to shoulder? If 
so, think deeply upon the matter, and 
tell me what can be done. Age, vir esto / 
Nervos intendas tuos. Peace be with 
you and yours." 

Four years afterward (1772) he again 
writes to Charles Wesley on the same 
subject, and in the same strain : " I find 
almost all our preachers, in every circuit, 
have done with Christian Perfection. 
They say they believe it, but they never 
preach it, or not once in a quarter 



A Singular History. 61 

What is to be done ? Shall we let it 
drop, or make a point of it?" In his 
" Plain Account of Christian Perfection," 
published in its final revision in 1777, he 
says: "We ask once for all, Shall we 
defend this Perfection, or give it up?" 
In 1762 the professors of this state of 
grace were numbered by thousands. In 
1 765 Wesley says that he thought he 
knew five hundred who professed it. In 
1785 he writes: "Several persons have 
enjoyed this blessing without any inter- 
ruption for many years. Several enjoy 
it at this day." — Sermon on Perfection. 

This is a sad page of history. Fidel- 
ity to my own convictions, and the 
candor which the reader has a right to 
expect, impel me to say I am persuaded 
that it never need have been written, if 
the teachings which preceded and ac- 



62 Holiness. 

companied these strange events had 
been wholly clear and scriptural. Nor 
need we reflect on Mr. Wesley. F*ew 
men, in all human history, have sought 
for truth more diligently ; none with a 
more honest heart ; none with greater 
aggregate success. 




CHAPTER V. 

THE ERROR, AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST IT. 

MKrE have often seen a mountain 
cQ stream whose bright waters 
flowed on like liquid crystal till some 
little rivulet, stirred up by passing herds, 
poured in its muddy current and made 
the whole river turbid. Whence comes 
this turbidness of the Wesleyan stream ? 
I accord most heartily in a sentiment of 
Bishop Foster, that " no one can prop- 
erly investigate a subject, or even suc- 
cessfully examine the researches of 
another, until his mind, in relation to 
truth, is as the needle to the pole, ready 
to follow it whatever its direction." Sin- 
cerely endeavoring to search for the 



64 Holiness. 

truth, I find my convictions settling in a 
certain direction. It seems to me that 
Mr. Wesley's anxiety to explain his 
position, so as to accord with the latter 
part of the Ninth Article of the Church 
of England, led him into manifold error. 
That article teaches that original sin is 
" the fault or corruption of the nature of 
every man that naturally is engendered 
of the offspring of Adam, whereby man 
is very far gone from original righteous- 
ness, and is of his own nature inclined to 
evil," ..." and this infection of nature 
doth remain, yea, in them that are re- 
generated." There is no controversy 
among us in regard to the truth of the 
doctrine of natural depravity ; but where 
is -the proof that this " infection of na- 
ture" remains in the regenerate, the soul 
which is "born of God?" That one 



The Error: Probabilities. 65 

born of God and made a new creature 
is still depraved, earthly, sensual, and 
devilish, is a startling proposition. It 
requires positive proof before it can be 
accepted. 

The antecedent probabilities seem 
wholly against it. It looks strange that 
when the penitent comes, with his broken, 
trusting heart, to the Saviour, that he 
should do for him only half that needs 
to be done. Not so did Christ in his 
acts of healing while on earth. When 
the blind came, saying, Lord, that I 
might receive my sight, Christ did not 
cure one eye, and then require a new 
repentance and a new act of faith before 
he touched the other. When he healed 
the lame, it was not by a partial cure 
which sent him away limping. And if, 
as we all believe, the same act of faith 



66 Holiness. 

secured the pardon of sin and the regen- 
eration of the soul, why should the inner 
salvation be less thorough than the out- 
ward ? When Lazarus was raised from 
his grave, it was to vigorous life. He 
came not forth weak, faint, diseased, re- 
quiring a litter to convey him home. 
Instead of calling for careful hands to 
bear him tenderly to his house, Christ 
said, Loose him, and let him go. Can 
we suppose that Christ's power over 
spiritual death is less complete than 
over natural death ? 

If at conversion a residue of depravity 
is left in the soul, for what purpose is it 
left ? Shall we adopt the hypothesis of 
Whitefield, that some Amalekites must 
be left in the land to keep Israel humble ? 
In all that God has revealed of himself, 
or of his plans, I see nothing that ex- 



The Error: Probabilities. 67 

plains why the "seeds of sin" should be 
left in the regenerate. Every reason 
that calls for the removal of half of the 
depravity, requires the removal of the 
whole of it. 

And if a residue of corruption remains 
in him who is born of God, is it not an 
enemy within ? Does it not chill love, 
mar obedience, hinder devotion, render 
temptations more numerous and more 
dangerous, and hang as a weight upon 
the soul in all its motions ? And is not 
the babe in Christ weak, unskilled in the 
wiles of the adversary, and new to all 
the duties of the new life ? Why must 
he set out, in his weakness, with this 
burden upon him ? Wherefore must he 
begin his heavenward flight with a broken 
wing ? Surely he who half cleanses the 
heart can make it wholly clean ; and all 



68 Holiness. 

that we know of the character of God 
would cause us to expect him to com- 
plete the work at once. 

One of the set arguments, on the 
residue hypothesis, to prove the possi- 
bility of the removal of the " seeds of sin," 
is that, if this residue cannot be removed, 
then its remaining is man's misfortune, 
not his fault. This argument, whatever 
its value in other directions, is fatal to 
the hypothesis on which it is based. Can 
it be that a man born of God is, when 
the divine work is wrought, left in a 
state which compels us to pronounce 
him either unfortunate or guilty ? 

And again, if a certain residue of de- 
pravity remains in the regenerate man, 
but is removed when he attains entire 
sanctification, what will be his condition 
if he relapses from entire sanctification to 



The Error: First Argument. 69 

mere justification again ? Does exactly 
the former fraction of the old nature 
return, or more, or less ? Surely a the- 
ory which so militates against all which 
we might with apparent reason expect 
needs very positive proof, a good foun- 
dation in Scripture declaration and exam- 
ple. Is it true, then, that " this infection 
of nature doth remain, yea, in them that 
are regenerated ? " I am free to confess 
my doubt, and to set forth briefly some of 
the reasons which compel me to doubt. 

I. The residue theory is not supported 
by sufficient Scripture evidence. 

If there is one single passage of Scrip- 
ture which directly asserts that one born 
of God, and in a normal condition as a 
regenerated soul, still has a degree of 
depravity in him, where is that passage ? 
It is really surprising that a doctrine 



jo Holiness. 

should go so long unquestioned, when its 
ablest adherents show so scanty an ar- 
ray of Scripture and prove so little by it. 
Wesley, in his sermon on "Sin in Be- 
lievers," cites but six passages to prove 
the doctrine, and not one of them clearly 
contains it. 

He first quotes Gal. v, ij: For the 
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the 
Spirit against the flesh : and these are 
contrary the one to the other ; so that ye 
cannot do the things that ye would. He 
says that in these words Paul is " speak- 
ing to believers, and describing the state 
of believers in general." How can this 
be when the very first remark he makes 
to the Galatians is that he marvels that 
they are so soon removed from him that 
called them into the grace of Christ unto 
another gospel? He calls them foolish, 



The Error: First Argument. yi 

speaks of their biting and devouring one 
another, and tells them that they are 
fallen from grace. They were not all 
alike fallen ; for Paul adds : Brethren, if 
a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which 
are spiritual, restore such a one. The 
Church in Galatia was evidently in a 
very bad condition ; many of the mem- 
bers seem to have departed wholly from 
the faith, and there were grievous sins 
among them. Paul hoped that the 
Church might be saved from utter wreck, 
but was not sure of it. Is it safe, then, 
to take a remark, made to describe such 
a motley company, as a correct descrip- 
tion of every one who is born of God? 

He next quotes First Corinthians iii, 
i, 3, 4: And I, brethren, could not speak 
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto 
carnal, even as unto babes in Christ ; . . . 



72 Holiness. 

Ye are yet carnal : for whereas there is 
among you envying, and strife, and divi- 
sions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men ? 
Paul called them carnal because of their 
envy, strife, and factions. Consequently 
the term applies only to those who were 
guilty of envy, strife, and faction. And 
did Paul allude to temptations simply, 
or genuine, open sins, known and read 
of all ? He wrote with anguish of heart 
and many tears, rebuking wickedness, 
visible, palpable, shameful, and not de- 
scribing the moral condition of those who, 
as Mr. Wesley says in this very sermon, 
" have power both over outward and in- 
ward sin, even from the moment they 
are justified.". 

He cites the Second Epistle to the 
Corinthians vii, i : Having therefore 
these promises, dearly beloved, let us 



The Error: First Argument. 73 

cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of 
the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness 
in the fear of God. Mr. Wesley says, 
in regard to this passage, that in it 
Paul " plainly teaches that those be- 
lievers were not yet cleansed there- 
from." 

But what does Paul teach about him- 
self? He says, Let us cleanse our- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit. He certainly includes himself. 
Does Paul, " the aged," the inspired 
apostle of Christ, in the twenty-sixth 
year of his ministry, and only six years 
before his martyrdom, confess that he is 
not yet cleansed ? And how shall we 
interpret numberless other exhortations 
which assume the same shape ; this, for 
instance : Let us walk honestly, as in 
the day : not in rioting and drunken- 



74 Holiness. 

ness, not in chambering and wantonness, 
not in strife and envying. Rom. xiii, 13. 
Does Paul here "plainly teach" that the 
Roman Christians were " not cleansed 
therefrom," nor he himself? Paul's ex- 
hortation to the Corinthians is simply a 
strong appeal to them to continue in the 
love of God, with all fidelity, serving him 
with a perfect heart and a willing mind. 
Lastly, Mr. Wesley quotes what the 
Spirit saith unto the Churches of Ephesus, 
Pergamos, and Sardis. The admonitions 
were addressed to the ministers of the 
several Churches named, as the repre- 
sentatives of the flocks to which they 
ministered; and they are not to be con- 
strued as merely descriptive of the 
religious condition of the pastors them- 
selves. But Wesley construes the pas- 
sage as if it were addressed to the pastors 



The Error: First Argument. 75 

only. " Who can doubt that there was 
faith in the angel of the Church at Ephe- 
sus when our Lord said to him, I know 
thy works, and thy labor, and thy pa- 
tience? But was there, meantime, no 
sin in his heart ? Yea, or Christ would 
not have added, Nevertheless, I have 
somewhat against thee, because thou hast 
left thy first love. This was a real sin 
which God saw in his heart, of which, 
accordingly, he is exhorted to repent ; and 
yet we have no authority to say that 
even then he had no faith." But was 
that of which he was reminded simply a 
temptation, involving no condemnation ? 
If it was, why summon him to repent of 
it, and remember whence he had fallen, 
and do his first works, lest God should 
come quickly, and remove the candlestick 
out of its place ? Moreover, this rebuke 



76 . Holiness. 

came upon the Ephesian pastor, if we 
construe it as does Mr. Wesley, because 
he had left his first love. What, then, 
was his religious state before he left his 
first love? How can a rebuke, adminis- 
tered to a man because he has fallen, 
prove anything in regard to the religious 
state of those who do not fall ? 

The angel of the Church of Pergamos 
was also exhorted to repent, or else God 
would come quickly, and fight against 
them. Nothing but overt sin could pro- 
voke such a threat. The angel of the 
Church of Sardis is exhorted to strengthen 
the things which remain, that are ready 
to die. How does the state of a Church, 
or of a man, whose piety is at the point 
of death, prove that there is a residue of 
depravity left in one born of God who 
has not been unfaithful ? 



The Error: First Argument. J J 

These, then, are the Scripture proofs 
of the doctrine that " this infection of 
nature doth remain, yea, in them that 
are regenerated." One of the six is a 
general exhortation to fidelity in all 
things. The other five are admonitions 
and rebukes administered to Churches 
which had fallen into open sin. The 
very utmost that these admonitions can 
prove is, not that there is a residue of 
depravity in every believer, but that 
there may be " sin " in a believer ; that 
the all-merciful God is so patient toward 
all who enter his service that, so far from 
being" eager to cast them off. he bears 
with them, and calls them still his own, 
even when they begin to falter. I repeat 
it : the sermon on Sin in Believers has 
been misunderstood, because its place in 
history has been overlooked. It was 



78 Holiness. 

written in the midst of the abuses of 
1763, and was designed to refute the 
"high perfectionists," who made the 
heart of the righteous sad, by deny- 
ing that any were Christians except 
those who inhabited the same imagin- 
ary heights on which they dreamed 
that they were themselves dwelling. 

II. The general tenor of Scripture in 
regard to the new birth is such that it 
can hardly be reconciled with the idea 
that partial depravity is the normal con- 
dition of the regenerate. 

He who is born of God is said to 
be a new man. Therefore, if any man 
be in Christ, he is a new creature: old 
things are passed away ; behold, all 
things are become new. And all things 
are of God, who hath reconciled us to 
himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given 



The Error: Second Argument. 79 

to us the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Cor. 
v, 17-18. 

" Being then made free from sin, ye 
became the servants of righteousness." 
Rom. vi, 18. 

" But now being made free from sin, 
and become servants to God, ye have 
your fruit unto holiness, and the end 
everlasting life." Rom. vi, 22. 

Paul exhorts the Ephesians to put off 
" the old man," which is corrupt, and to 
put on the new man, which after God is 
created in righteousness and true holi- 
ness. Eph. iv, 22-24. 

In almost identical language he de- 
scribes the Colossians as those who have 
put off the old man with his deeds ; and 
have put on the new man, which is re- 
newed in knowledge after the image of 
him that created him. Col. iii, 9, 10. 



8o Holiness. 

John Wesley's description of the new 
man is entirely correct and scriptural : 

" We allow that the state of a justified 
person is inexpressibly great and glorious. 
He is born again, ' not of blood, nor of 
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God/ He is a child of God, a member of 
Christ, an heir of the kingdom of heaven. 
* The peace of God, which passeth all 
understanding, keepeth his heart and 
mind in Christ Jesus/ His very body is 
a l temple of the Holy Ghost/ and a 
'habitation of God through the Spirit/ 
He is 'created anew in Christ Jesus/ 
He is washed, he is sanctified. His 
heart is purified by faith; he is 'cleansed 
from the corruption that is in the word ;' 
1 the love of God is shed abroad in his 
heart by the Holy Ghost which is given 
unto him/ And so long as he 'walketh 



The Error : Second Argument. Si 

in love' (which he may always do) he 
worships God in spirit and in truth. He 
keepeth the commandments of God, and 
doeth those things that are pleasing in 
his sight, so exercising himself as to 
1 have a conscience void of offense to- 
ward God and toward man ;' and he has 
power both over outward and inward 
sin, even from the moment he is justi- 
fied." — Sermon on Sin in Believers. 

Who would suspect, after hearing this 
exalted description of the regenerate 
man, that he needs to be " thoroughly 
convinced of the total corruption of his 
nature?" Wesley's portrait of the new 
man expresses the general tenor of the 
Scripture. If there is one line in all 
Gods word which clearly warns any be- 
liever of the sin that is in him, except in 
connection with conduct which demands 



82 Holiness. 

rebuke or admonition, I confess that 
I do not know where to find it. 

Nor have we any thing in Scripture 
biography to prove the residue theory. 
What Old Testament saint, or New 
Testament Christian, " so far perfect as 
not to commit sin," was ever distressed 
about his residuary carnality, or was 
" thoroughly convinced of the total cor- 
ruption of his nature," sought deliverance 
from it as a special act of grace, suc- 
ceeded, and had the witness of the Spirit 
that the work was done ? One clear, 
indisputable instance is enough ; but 
where is it ? 

III. The ablest writers who have dis- 
cussed these subjects on the residue 
theory have not been able, in their de- 
scriptions of the Christian life, to main- 
tain a clear, practical distinction between 



The Eiror: Third Argument. 83 

those who are supposed to be simply 
regenerate, and those who are accounted 
to be freed from all depravity. 

As we have already seen, Mr. Wesley 
himself fails to keep a clear line of dis- 
tinction between the two states. He 
declares that one who is born of God 
" has power over both outward and in- 
ward sin, even from the moment he is 
justified." In the sermon on ' Patience' 
he speaks of the new birth, declaring 
that " there is, in that hour, a general 
change from inward sinfulness to inward 
holiness." In his sermon on ''Salvation 
by Faith" he says : " He that is by faith 
born of God sinneth not by any habitual 
sin;" "nor by any willful sin;" "nor by 
any sinful desire ;" " nor doth he sin by 
infirmities, whether in act, word, or 
thought." 



84 Holiness. 

In his " Farther Thoughts on Chris- 
tian Perfection," published in 1763, he 
admits that the highest degree attain- 
able on earth will not save a man from 
mistakes, and that " these mistakes will 
frequently occasion something wrong, 
both in our tempers, and words, and 
actions." Here the religious state of the 
entirely sanctified man is put below that 
of one who is simply born of God. He 
says, in the sermon on the Marks of the 
New Birth, " A fruit which can in no wise 
be separated from it, no, not for an hour, 
is power over sin," inward and outward ; 
" for it purifieth the heart from every 
unholy desire and temper." Yet, strange 
to tell, in his sermon on Christian Per- 
fection, which is a set effort to draw the 
distinguishing line, he says that the per- 
fect man exceeds the other, in that he 



The Error: Third Argument. 85 

is " freed from evil thoughts and evil 
tempers." 

In his sermon on the Witness of the 
Spirit, Mr. Wesley affirms that many 
texts of Scripture, " with the experience 
of all real Christians, sufficiently evince 
that there is in every believer both the 
testimony of God's Spirit and the testi- 
mony of his own, that he is a child of 
God." In his sermon on the Marks of 
the New Birth, he teaches that among 
those marks are peace, hope, love,. and 
freedom from sin. 

But Bishop Hamline argues at con- 
siderable length that it is consistent with 
an entirely sanctified state for a man to 
be compelled to say, " Now and then my 
communion with God is interrupted ;" 
" I suffer inward conflicts ;" " I am fre- 
quently unconscious of anything like 



86 Holiness. 

triumph ;" " I am often perplexed in re- 
gard to my religious state." — Works, 
vol. ii, p. 347. 

Dr. Wakefield defines regeneration to 
be " an inward and thorough renovation 
of our being ;" that " moral change in 
man, by which he is saved from the love, 
the practice, and the dominion of sin, 
and enabled, with full choice of will, 
and the energy of right affections, to 
love God and keep his commandments ;" 
while Entire Sanctification is " entire 
conformity of heart and life to the will 
of God, as made known to us in his 
word."— -Pp. 425, 426. Well may he add, 
that " Entire Sanctification does not 
differ in essence from Regeneration." — 

p. 446. 

And well may Watson remark, that 
" the regeneration which accompanies 



The Error: Third Argument. 87 

justification is a large approach to this 
state of perfected holiness." — Institutes, 
vol. ii, p. 455. 

Bishop Foster explains Entire Sancti- 
fication to be the state of one who is 
" entirely free from sin, properly so called, 
both inward and outward f while Mr. 
Wesley says, that taking the word sin "in 
its plain, common acceptation," one born 
of God does not commit sin ; and a 
greater than he says the same thing. 
Surely here is some confusion of tongues. 

There is great significance in the con- 
clusion to which Mr. Wesley and his 
preachers came in 1747, that Perfection 
should be preached by way of promise, 
"by drawing rather than by driving." 
The very moment one attempts to drive, 
he is logically compelled to disparage 
the state of justification, and represent 



88 Holiness. 

it as somehow unsatisfactory and unsafe. 
In no other way can a sufficient differ- 
ence between the two states be shown 
to justify the driving. Here is just the 
point where Bell and his fellow-enthu- 
siasts left the true path, and began their 
career of extravagance and folly. No 
wonder that Mr. Wesley was unwilling 
to let the young preachers try to explain 
in their sermons the exact difference be- 
tween the two stages of the Christian 
life. He that can see any marked, prac- 
tical distinction between the two, as Mr. 
Wesley himself describes them, must 
have a little of the Hudibrastic acumen 
which 

" Could distinguish and divide 
A hair 'twixt south and south-west side." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ERROR : TWO MORE ARGUMENTS. 

IV. The religious experience of the 
beginner can be explained without the 
assumption that depravity still remains 
in his heart. 

It is said that " the position that there 
is no sin in a believer, no carnal mind," 
is " contrary to the experience " of God's 
children. " These continually feel a 
heart bent to backsliding, a natural ten- 
dency to evil, a proneness to depart 
from God, and cleave to the things of 
earth. They are daily sensible of sin 
remaining in their heart, pride, self-will, 
unbelief, and of sin cleaving to all they 
speak and do, even their best actions 



go Holiness. 

and holiest duties. Yet, at the same 
time, they ' know that they are of God f 
they cannot doubt of it one moment." 
" So that they are equally assured that 
sin is in them, and ' Christ is in them 
the hope of glory/ " — Sermon on Sin in 
Believers, 

This is a strong delineation, but it 
is not necessary so to construe it as to 
make Mr. Wesley contradict himself. 
He did not intend in this passage to 
recant what he had been teaching all his 
life. He had already said, in this same 
sermon, that a justified man " has power 
over outward and inward sin, even from 
the moment he is justified." By the 
term " sin," in the passage first quoted, 
then, he cannot mean that there is guilt 
in a believer, nor any state of mind 
or heart which involves condemnation. 



The Error: Fourth Argument. , 91 

Consequently, instead of sin, properly 
so called, he means simply temptation, 
or that which originates temptation. Ar- 
guing in support of the residue theory, 
he cites these temptations as proof that 
the "infection of nature " may remain in 
the regenerate. The pride and self-will 
which he names are therefore practically 
temptations to pride and self-will, and 
temptations only; and the unbelief which 
remains in the heart of a true believer is 
weak faith only. 

But he cites these temptations as a 
proof of a source of temptation within, a 
demonstration that the inner nature is still 
infected. The fact of temptation, even if 
it comes from within, does not prove the 
point at issue. The first temptation and 
the first sin in human history were re- 
corded for our instruction in righteous- 



92 Holiness. 

ness ; and they teach us lessons of pro- 
foundest wisdom. Let us examine them 
for a moment. 

Eve was pure in her whole being ; with 
no defect, no taint of depravity of any 
kind. By the craft of the adversary she 
was drawn into discourse, doubtless pro- 
longed far beyond what is revealed in 
the brief-narrative, in regard to the for- 
bidden fruit, and the prohibition, compli- 
ance with which was appointed to be the 
test of their loyalty to God, the condi- 
tion of their continuance in the divine 
favor. Her eyes and her thoughts were 
kept upon the tree until she saw that it 
was good for food, and that it was pleas- 
ant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to 
make one wise. Here were three entice- 
ments, each of which appealed to an ele- 
ment of perfect human nature, and tend- 



The Error: Fourth Argument. 93 

ed to create a desire which in itself was 
wholly innocent. There was, first, the 
promised gratification of the love for 
pleasant food ; secondly, the gratification 
of the. inner taste, which delights in beau- 
tiful forms and colors ; and, thirdly, the 
promised joy of increasing mental power 
and mental treasure. 

The third element of the temptation 
was doubtless the strongest and most 
dangerous. It is a poor fancy to imag- 
ine that Adam and Eve, while adult in 
stature, were infants in intellect. It is 
not unreasonable to infer that they pos- 
sessed a mental vigor which none of 
their posterity have equaled. A perfect 
mind acting through a perfect brain, a 
perfect physical organization, could hard- 
ly be otherwise than active, acute, power- 
ful, quick to apprehend, and strong to 



94 Holiness. 

retain its acquisitions. A mind like this, 
studying a perfect creation, all new, all 
beautiful and good, reflecting the divine 
glory in man and beast, and bird and in- 
sect, in every leaf upon the trees of Eden 
as well as in every star that by night 
hung over it, must have found perpetual 
exquisite enjoyment. Life itself must 
have been a succession of beautiful sur- 
prises, and every hour full of mingled 
wonder and adoration. 

The enemy doubtless knew all this, 
and plied his arts skillfully. Eve stood 
looking at the beautiful tree, and listen- 
ing to the cunning words of the tempter, 
assuring her of the unknown stores of 
pleasure within her reach, and the safety 
with which they might be seized. The 
longer she looked at the tree, and list- 
ened to the subtle tongue of the devil, 



The Error: Fourth Argument. 95 

the more she felt the power of the temp- 
tation. The elements of her nature to 
which appeal was made were holy; the 
desires which sprung up were in them- 
selves perfectly innocent Yet, innocent 
as they were, these desires began to urge 
in the direction of sin. And still she 
looked and listened, while the honeyed 
speech went on, assuring her of mental 
enjoyment, new, untold, and yet safe ; 
and the pressure increased, until at last 
she began to weigh the question of obe- 
dience or disobedience. And here is the 
place where sin began. To ponder that 
question is to begin to yield. Up to this 
point there was no guilt incurred ; but 
now she considers whether to obey or 
disobey. And still she looked, and list- 
ened, and wished, until the desire over- 
powered all else, and she took of the 



g6 Holiness. 

fruit and did eat. The deed was done, 
the compact was violated, and Satan tri- 
umphed over his victim. 

All trial life implies temptation. All 
human needs and desires, though in 
themselves innocent, are sources of dan- 
ger. Even a holy nature, as in the case 
of our first parents, may have in it ele- 
ments which demand steady control, and 
without it work death. That a soul born 
of God should be still subject to tempta- 
tion, and that it should not be free from 
sources of peril within, is not incompre- 
hensible. Is it difficult to see how an 
innocent desire may impel in the direc- 
tion of moral wrong ? Illustrations might 
be multiplied to any extent. 

A ship is wrecked. Two survivors of 
the crew reach a fragment of the shat- 
tered vessel, and day after day drift 



The Error: Fourth Argument. 97 

helplessly upon the cruel sea. At last 
nothing remains of their scanty store of 
food and drink except two biscuits and 
a gill of water. These they reserve till 
they are at the point of death from thirst 
and starvation. The weary night suc- 
ceeds the weary day, and morning comes 
again, but no land, no sail, greets their 
longing eyes. They bring out the last 
morsel, and resolve to eat and drink, and 
then lie down and wait, and, if they 
must, die. One eats and drinks his little 
portion in a moment, and feels as fam- 
ished as ever. He begins to look at the 
biscuit in the hand of his comrade ; he 
sees the scanty supply of water in the ves- 
sel, and the sight renders his hunger and 
thirst still more intense. The thought 
occurs, " I am stronger than he. I can 

take that away from him." Here is a 

7 



98 Holiness. 

thought of sin, but not of necessity a 
sinful thought. Hunger and thirst are 
raging within him, unreasoning impulses 
which regard right and wrong no more 
than does the force of gravitation. They 
here press, too, in the direction of 
the wrong. Conscience, honor, friend- 
ship, humanity, oppose. The flesh lust- 
eth against the spirit, and the spirit 
against the flesh. But the force which 
opposes conscience and honor is in itself 
innocent ; and so long as conscience 
maintains perfect supremacy there is not 
a taint of sin. 

Thus Christ himself was tempted after 
he had fasted forty days and was a hun- 
gered, Satan taking advantage of the hour 
of physical distress to make his assault. 
Thus Christ was in all points tempted like 
as we are, yet without sin. Thus it be- 



The Error: Fourth Argument. 99 

comes clear that where there is no taint 
of depravity there may be impulses, and 
even impulses originating within the na- 
ture, which urge in the direction of sin. 
I will even admit that these inner sources 
of danger may be increased by a previ- 
ous life of sin. The penitent inebriate 
believes and is pardoned and regenerat- 
ed ; but his brain, long accustomed to 
the intoxicant, may be so affected by the 
sudden withholding of it as to feel in- 
tense distress ; and he is tortured by an 
almost intolerable longing for the old 
indulgence. This is the direct result of 
sin ; yet it is not now sin, but disease ; 
and in the pardoned man neither the 
disease nor the perils which it involves 
are proof that depravity still remains in 
the immortal soul. 

Possibly we may gather some light 



ioo Holiness. 

from this subject to aid in the interpre- 
tation of the passage in James: Every 
man is tempted, when he is drawn away 
of his own lust, and enticed, (James i, 14.) 
The term "lust" carries a bad face, but 
the original word (hridvfiia) has no such 
aspect. Paul employs precisely the same 
term when he declares that he has a de- 
sire to depart and be with Christ, To be 
human is to be endowed with appetites 
and passions, innocent in themselves, but 
unreasoning, requiring to be guided by 
the intellect and the conscience, and 
controlled by the will. These appetites 
and passions may ally themselves to 
thought, but in themselves are void of 
thought, and know only to press onward. 
Man's duty and safety demand that they 
be subjugated, taught to obey. He is 
like one who drives a team of blind 



The Error: Fourth Argument. ior 

horses ; he must rein them up, and guide, 
and control them, or be dashed in pieces. 
When they master him, instead of his 
mastering them, ruin is not far off. 

There are affections, also, in them- 
selves not only innocent, but essential to 
a perfect humanity, which may at times 
impel in the direction of sin. A father 
whose children need food and medicine, 
which he has not the means of provid- 
ing, finds a purse of money ; and as he 
looks at it the thought occurs, " O that 
this were mine ! what comfort and heal- 
ing would it bring to my loved ones." 
There is no sin in that thought. An- 
other thought swiftly follows, " No one 
saw me pick it up. I can use the money, 
and no one will suspect me." Still there 
may be no sin. He may feel sad. too, 
when he reflects that he cannot honestly 



102 Holiness. 

conceal the purse and use the money to 
save the lives of his children ; but there 
is no guilt in his sadness. If he for a 
time wavers in his design to return it to 
the loser, he will feel guilty the moment 
he detects his hesitation ; but if he has 
the mastery in all his mental contest, 
not only is he guiltless, but there is 
nothing in the whole experience that 
proves the presence of depravity, either 
partial or total. 

Then, again, we have an invisible ene- 
my who delights to tempt even where 
he cannot overcome, and harass where 
he cannot destroy. Satan tempted Da- 
vid to be proud of his kingdom. He put 
it into the heart of Judas to betray his 
Master. He put it into the heart of An- 
anias and Sapphira to lie. These are in- 
stances where he succeeded. Who can 



The Error: Fourth Argument. 103 

number the instances in which he assails? 
And who can tell, when evil suggestions, 
specious reasonings in favor of the 
wrong, spring up in his mind, from what 
source they come ? A cold heart may 
chill devotion, and so may physical 
weariness. A lack of faith may fill the 
mind with anxiety and apprehension in 
regard to things temporal or spiritual ; 
and yet a tendency to be apprehensive 
may be nothing but the first indication 
of approaching illness. 

How then can one born of God infer 
from the nature of his temptations, or 
their numbers, or their strength, that the 
"infection of nature doth still remain ?" 
And if, as Watson declares, the change 
which he has undergone involves " the 
utter destruction of the power of sin in the 
heart," (Sermons, II, p. 413,) how can he 



104 Holiness. 

be sure that depravity exists there at all? 
And if, while he never expects in this 
world to get beyond the reach of temp- 
tation, he is steadily triumphing over 
them, why need he be anxious to ascer- 
tain their source ? If the matches of the 
incendiary are extinguished so promptly 
that not a spark comes from them, nor 
even the smell of smoke, it matters 
little whether he is trying to set fire 
to the house from the inside or the 
outside. 

V. The religious experience of the ad- 
vanced Christian can be explained with- 
out assuming that, after his justification, 
depravity, either total or partial, remains 
in his heart until a special act of faith 
frees him from it. 

The word of God recognizes distinc- 
tions of degree among genuine followers 



The Error : Fifth Argument. 105 

of Christ. Some are described as weak, 
others as strong in the Lord. Some are 
very princes in Israel, and others, like 
the conies, are a feeble folk. Paul calls 
the Philippians his brethren dearly be- 
loved and longed for, his joy and crown ; 
but when he addressed the unfaithful 
Galatians he said, I stand in doubt of you. 
When he looked in the one direction he 
felt that he had not labored in vain. 
When he turned his eyes upon the oth- 
ers, he felt disappointment contending 
with hope. These things indicate a wide 
difference, not only in the outward con- 
duct of these two companies of professed 
converts, but in the very elements of 
Christian character. The prophet Eze- 
kiel, portraying the divine determination 
to punish sin, declares that when God 
brings pestilence upon the land, because 



106 Holiness. 

of the iniquities of the people, these three 
men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, 
they should deliver but their own souls by 
their righteousness. Here three men are 
named as eminent for their piety. No 
higher praise could be given men. Thus 
in later times Zacharias and Elizabeth 
walked in all the commandments of the 
Lord blameless. 

In all ages, in all lands, where God is 
known, in all branches of the Church of 
Christ, there have been those who went 
on to perfection, grew up into fullness of 
stature, and were filled with all the full- 
ness of God. Every-where they have 
shone as lights in the world. Joyfully 
we read the record of their holy lives, 
and glorify God in them. Their names 
are among the treasures of the Church ; 
and from their bright example we learn 



The Error : Fifth Argument. 107 

faith, hope, fidelity, courage for the right. 
Modern times, as well as the ages which 
are gone, have felt their presence and 
the power of their piety. Our own 
Church, as well as others, records the 
names of Christian men and women 
whose lives, like Jerusalem above, shine 
with the glory of God. It is easy to be- 
gin the list : Wesley, Fletcher, Bram- 
well, Asbury, Hedding — but where shall 
we end ? Among the living, and among 
those who suspect it least of all, are men 
and women whose fidelity and spiritual- 
ity irradiate wide spaces about them ; and 
even the careless world takes knowledge 
of them that they have been with Jesus. 
The Scriptures not only recognize 
eminent piety, but encourage all be- 
lievers to attain it. It exhorts us to go 
on ttnto perfection ; to abound more and 



io8 Holiness. 

more in all the graces of the Spirit ; to 
grow in grace, and in the knowledge of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; to 
grow up into Christ in all things ; to 
give diligence to make our calling and 
election sure, for so an entrance shall be 
ministered unto us abundantly into the 
everlasting kingdom. 

The same high privilege is held out to 
us in the beautiful figures of the Script- 
ure. It is declared that the path of the 
just is as the shining light, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day ; that 
the righteous shall flourish like the palm 
tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon, 
that he shall be like a tree planted by the 
rivers of 'water \ whose leaf shall not wither. 
The kingdom of God is said to be like a 
grain of mustard seed, which, when it is 
sown in the earth, is less than all the 



The Error: Fifth Argument. 109 

seeds that be in the earth, but it groweth 
up and shoot eth out great branches, so that 
the fowls of the air may lodge under the 
shadow of it. 

Nor is this growth limited to any one 
rate of progress. Wesley seems to have 
thought at one time that nothing is 
possible beyond a gradual advance, 
whose several steps are so small as to 
be imperceptible. Thus he speaks of 
sanctification as a "progressive work, car- 
ried on in the soul by slow degrees, from 
the time of our first turning to God." 
(Sermon on the New Birth.) Thus he 
exhorts those who seek the fullness of 
blessing "not to fret" against God, be- 
cause the work is not wholly done. " In- 
stead of uselessly tormenting yourself 
because the time is not fully come, you 
will calmly and quietly wait for it, know- 



no Holiness. 

ing that it will come, and will not tarry." 
(Sermon on Satan's Devices.) 

His later views on the subject are in- 
complete, possibly, but they recognize 
clearly the power of faith to hasten spir- 
itual growth. The work of grace in the 
soul is subject to a thousand modifica- 
tions, the causes of some of which we are 
able to trace ; and of others totally un- 
able. The temperament of the convert, 
the natural tenacity with which he car- 
ries out his purposes, his mental activity 
and ability, the clearness of his religious 
views and the facility with which he 
gathers religious knowledge, the thor- 
oughness of conviction with which he be- 
gins to serve God, and the completeness 
of the surrender which he makes at the 
beginning, will all affect his subsequent 
progress. 



The Error: Fifth Argument. in 

Still, there is no limitation of times and 
seasons. Sometimes as much progress 
is made in an hour as was accomplished 
during previous years. A clear appre- 
hension of the blessing, an ardent desire, 
a full surrender of all that we have and 
are, and hope for, a fixed purpose, a 
strong faith, urging the believer to the 
throne of God in humble, persistent, im- 
portunate prayer, cannot fail. And 
where all these become fixed habits of 
the soul and control the whole life, bring- 
ing into captivity every thought to the 
obedie7ice of Christ, there will be steady 
progress. 

That a great work should be wrought 
in the soul of the experienced Christian 
in a brief space of time need not sur- 
prise us ; nor need we seek to account 
for it as recovery from a previous deca- 



ii2 Holiness. 

dence. No such explanation is nec- 
essary. There are times in the life of 
the most faithful follower of Christ when 
new light seems to beam about him. He 
sees opening before his spiritual vision 
new possibilities of faith, and hope, and 
love. The divine law, the divine charac- 
ter, seem holier and sin more hateful than 
ever before. Earth fades, heaven comes 
nearer. He looks at himself and finds 
how far below his privilege he has 
been living. He realizes that he is a 
spiritual dwarf, compared with what 
he ought to have been by this time. 
Then come, if may be, shame and sorrow 
that he has not done better. He still 
has peace with God. He does not feel 
that the wrath of God is upon him, be- 
cause of the smallness of his spiritual 
stature, but he realizes that with all this 



The Error: Fifth Argument. 113 

new light he cannot rest content with 
his present attainments ; that he would 
be condemned by his own conscience 
if he were to make no effort to advance 
to something higher, nobler, nearer God, 
and more like God. He burns with ar- 
dor of desire for God. He seeks in 
humble, importunate, believing prayer. 
And then comes the baptism of the Ho- 
ly Ghost, rich, full, abundant, filling his 
soul with peace, and blessing, and salva- 
tion. 

And thus the Christian rises from a 
lower to a higher plane of experience. 
His faith holds with a stronger grasp, 
his hope shines with brighter light, his 
love burns with a more steady flame. 
Every element of his character is clothed 
with new beauty and power. He is 
more faithful, more active, more zealous, 

8 



H4 Holiness. 

more humble, more watchful. He may 
still have temptations, but victory is 
more prompt and more complete. He 
is a larger Christian, worth more to the 
Church and the world than ever before, 
more thoroughly furnished to all good 
works. Nor need his growth cease at 
this point. All upward progress only 
reveals higher possibilities, other realms, 
like Bunyan's land of Beulah, " where the 
sun always shines, and the birds always 
sing." 

Nor will the divine work wrought in 
the soul be of necessity defective because 
our theories fail to explain it. God's 
people would indeed fare ill if his deal- 
ings with them were no wiser than their 
prayers. What human father would be 
so cruel to his children as to limit him- 
self by their inexperience ? God will 



The Error: Fifth Argument, 115 

not deal thus with the sons whom he is 
bringing unto glory. We know in whom 
we have believed. With the apostle we 
will exclaim, Glory, throughout all ages, 
world without end, be to Him who is able to 
do exceeding abundantly above all that we 
ask or think, according to the power that 
worketh in us/ As the little child comes 
to the earthly parent, and even if it can 
make its wants known only by inarticu- 
late cries and flowing tears, yet is under- 
stood, and parental love ministers to it 
far beyond its own scanty knowledge, so 
the child of God, coming into his pres- 
ence with his burden of want, shall re- 
ceive answers that go far beyond his 
poor prayers. 

That God does so pass beyond us is 
matter of daily experience. We some- 
times ask amiss and receive not ; and 



n6 Holiness. 

when we see more clearly, thank God 
that our unwise petition was not granted. 
We put our trust in him, and he careth 
for us, in advance of our hopes and fears, 
arming us for conflicts which we have 
not foreseen, and preparing for us bless- 
ings which we, in our ignorance, did not 
know that we needed. He hears the 
prayer of the sincere worshiper, where 
the want is real, but the thought is 
wholly astray. Some years ago, I knew 
a man who, when convinced of his sin 
and danger, prayed for a new heart, 
found pardon and peace, and lives to 
this day a faithful Christian. But I 
learned, some years after his conversion, 
that when he prayed for a new heart he 
thought, in his simplicity, that he must 
have a change of the literal heart which 
beat in his breast ; that this identical or- 



The Error: Fifth Argument. 117 

gan had been so long the home of Satan 
that it must be taken out of his body, 
and a new one substituted. But did he 
fail because of his strange idea ? God's 
answer was wiser than the prayer, and 
went beyond the knowledge of the peni- 
tent. His penitence, his faith, gave him 
success. 

He that comes to God with a burning 
desire for spiritual growth, for a stronger 
faith, a surer hope, a more fervent love 
to God and all that is Gods ; who 
yearns for a clearer insight into divine 
things, and a fuller experience of them, 
a closer alliance with the world unseen, a 
warmer fellowship with God, the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost; a heart 
filled with all the fullness of God ; a 
heart into which nothing that brings 
with it the least touch or taint of sin can 



n8 Holiness. 

find entrance, will not hunger and thirst 
in vain. God will answer his prayer ; 
and be to him exceeding abundantly 
above all he asks or thinks. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CONCLUSION : AN APPEAL. 

qf^HRISTIAN reader, how do these 
^^ things look ? Where are you in 
reference to them ? Are you a begin- 
ner, having just entered the highway 
of holiness ? Bless God for your con- 
version. You are washed, regenerated, 
saved. Stand fast in the liberty where- 
with Christ hath made you free. Believ- 
ing, trusting, obeying, employing for the 
hour the grace which the hour brings 
with it, you are the Lord's. Powerless 
in yourself, you are clothed with Divine 
might to overcome the world and sin. 
Your state is most exalted. You are 
called to a place among God's people, 



120 Holiness. 

who are a chosen generation, a royal 
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar 
people ; that ye should show forth the 
praises of Him who hath called you out of 
darkness into his marvelous light. 

You see your calling. Do not for one 
moment undervalue your present attain- 
ments. You are now a child of God. 
He has graciously adopted you into his 
family, and made you not only a child 
but an heir. A crown and a kingdom 
awaits you. Remember this ever, and 
be not unworthy of your royal lineage. 
You are not so far away in point of time 
from your former life of sin that you for- 
get it. It seems so near that you won- 
der at the change, and are almost ready 
to question the reality of the transition. 
But the change is real. Do not doubt 
it, wonderful as it seems. Still, do not 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 121 

mistake. You will not reach the goal at 
a bound, nor win the battle with a single 
blow. So run, that yoti may obtain ; so 
fight, not as one that beateth the air. 

Remember, from the first hour of your 
acceptance you are called to be holy. 
He that committeth sin is of the devil. 
Whosoever is born of God doth not com- 
mit sin. Continuous victory is your 
birthright. You have come out of dark- 
ness into marvelous light ; and you may 
so live that the shadows return not. But 
be not ignorant of the devices of your 
enemy. You will be tempted ; so craftily, 
too, that you will be at a loss to tell 
whence the poisoned arrow comes. Sa- 
tan and his angels will hover about your 
path, ready to assault at every opportu- 
nity. Impulses from within, innocent in 
themselves it may be, will require con- 



122 Holiness. 

stant constraint, or become sources of 
evil. Only by wariness and self-mastery, 
by steadiness of purpose and fidelity in 
all things, can you be safe. Grow, then, in 
grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Go on unto 
perfection. Aspire to the highest attain- 
able point, the best gifts of God's grace. 
Aim to be a thorough Christian, fully 
developed, well rounded on every side. 

Many sincere followers of Christ are 
one sided, strong in some elements of 
the Christian character, and not so 
strong in others. One has faith, but 
lacks hope. Another has faith and hope, 
but does not abound in charity. A third 
has faith, hope, and charity, but is defi- 
cient in humility, zeal, or patience. Thus 
good men, on their way to the city which 
hath foundations, exhibit the Christian 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 123 

graces in various degrees of develop- 
ment, and are unequally equipped for the 
varied duties of the new life. They are 
strong here, weak there, rounded out on 
this side, sunken on that. Aspire, then, 
to completeness, thoroughness, perfec- 
tion. Let us examine, briefly, four ele- 
ments of a strong and beautiful Chris- 
tian character. 

1. Thorough conviction of the truth 
of God's word, and the reality of the 
things revealed therein. 

The possibility of doubt belongs, al- 
most of necessity, to a probationary 
state. God could, if he deemed it best, 
so reveal himself that unbelief would be 
impossible. He might write his laws 
upon the azure skies, and utter them in 
the voice of the storm. He might cause 
the earth to open beneath the feet of 



124 Holiness. 

every transgressor, as it did in the case 
of Korah. He could smite every sin- 
ner, at the very moment of transgres- 
sion, with so stern and so visible a hand 
that obedience would have little moral 
value. Not to thrust one's hand into a 
blazing furnace is not proof of uncom- 
mon sagacity. To get out of the way 
of a railway train is not virtue. For 
children to obey when the father stands 
holding the rod over them, is no proof 
that they possess the spirit of true obe- 
dience. Take them when they are away 
from home, when they fancy that the 
father will never hear of their conduct, 
and then, if they obey, the root of the 
matter is found in them. 

That moral liberty may not be de- 
stroyed, God withdraws himself from 
human vision. He maketh darkness his 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 125 

secret place ; his pavilion round about 
him are dark waters and thick clouds 
of the skies. He is manifested, in a cer- 
tain sense, in his works. The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and so does 
earth. Lo, these are parts of his ways ; 
but how little a portion is heard of 
Him? And because He is not seen, 
the fool hath said in his heart, There is 
no God; and even God's people are not 
beyond the reach of the fiery arrows of 
the adversary. He may ask us ques- 
tions like these : " How do you know, 
not only that the Scriptures are true, 
but that you understand them ? How 
do you know that there is another 
life beyond this — a day of judgment, a 
heaven, a hell ? What do you know of 
a world which your eyes have never 
beheld, and from which none of your 



126 Holiness. 

nearest friends, who have gone hence, 
ever return to tell you what death has 
revealed to them ?" 

But he who would be a strong Chris- 
tian must not waver. Let him examine 
the evidences of the Bible as fully as his 
mental needs require, and then let him 
take his position, firmly and finally : 
" Here will I stand ; this Book shall be 
my guide; I will believe, trust, obey. 
Come what will, whatever proves true, 
whatever proves false in the future, here 
will I rest ; on this rock will I build my 
hopes, my purposes, my life, my eternity." 

2. A thoroughly fixed, ever active, all- 
controlling principle of obedience to the 
Divine will. 

A fixed belief in God carries with it, 
logically, the obligation to obey his 
laws ; but the obligation must be recog- 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 127 

nized intelligently, deliberately, and fully. 
We are not our own ; we are bought 
with a price, and God claims us. Let 
him, then, who would become a strong 
Christian say, in his heart, and with 
all his heart, " I am the Lord s ; not 
reluctantly, but with joy I own the 
infinite obligation. I am the Lord's, 
wholly and forever : I exult in the 
thought. Here, at the foot of the cross, 
I devote my life to his service. All I 
am, all I possess, all of which I am capa- 
ble, every act, every word, every thought, 
every emotion, every plan, hope, and 
desire — all are Christ's, and shall be 
his, forever. Come what will — honor 
or reproach, joy or sorrow, life or 
death — I am the Lords ; and with all 
my powers of mind and soul and body, 
with my whole being, will I serve Him, 



128 Holiness. 

wholly, earnestly, joyfully, world without 
end." 

3. A thorough understanding of the 
duties and the spirit of the Christian 
life. 

Conscience does not inspire all needed 
knowledge. Very good men have done 
some very strange things. Scores of 
Christian churches are standing to-day 
in this land of ours which were built by 
means of lotteries. A hundred years 
ago good men made and sold alcoholic 
drinks, and themselves drank them daily, 
sometimes to a degree of intoxication. 
George Whitefield, one of the most labo- 
rious and successful ministers of the 
Gospel that ever lived, seemed to care 
for nothing but to serve God and do 
good. He traveled thousands of miles to 
solicit funds to erect his orphan asylum 



The Conclusion: An Appeal, 129 

in Georgia, secured for the institution 
a large tract of land, and then bought 
seventy-five negroes to cultivate the 
plantation. 

No ; conscience is not an inspiration 
of all truth in regard to morals and re- 
ligion. God does nothing needlessly. 
When he gave the Ten Commandments 
to Moses he wrote them upon stone that 
they might be the visible, permanent 
standard of right. And the tables were 
the work of God, and the writing was the 
writing of God, graven upon the tables. 
As the light is created for the eye, and 
the eye for the light, so conscience and 
revelation are given, each for the other. 
As the best eye needs the light, that 
there may be vision, so the most tender 
conscience needs revealed truth, or man 
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not 

9 



130 Holiness. 

whither he goeth. The most conscien- 
tious can only do what they believe to 
be right, and, where there is a lack of 
knowledge, they are liable to do evil 
while they are aiming to do well. 

They who write, set down the forms 
of the letters as they remember them. 
Each has a style of penmanship peculiar 
to himself, because he has adopted cer- 
tain peculiar ways of shaping the letters. 
Each identifies his own writing, because 
he recognizes the shapes which he has 
adopted. That which is without, merely 
represents that which is within. If the 
shapes, as the mind sees them, are accu- 
rate, the forms on the paper will be 
good. If the mental shapes are defect- 
ive, the writing will be poor. Thus the 
visible is controlled by the invisible. 

Thus, however conscientious and de- 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 131 

vout a Christian may be, his outward 
life will be shaped by the idea within. 
He can do only what he believes to be 
the Divine will ; and if the inner thought 
be astray, the outward act will be equally 
out of the way. He will be honest, ac- 
cording to his idea of honesty ; he will 
be true, according to his notion of truth- 
fulness only ; he will be devotional, be- 
nevolent, and faithful, only as, in his 
thinking, he figures devotion, benev- 
olence, and fidelity. That which is with- 
out, is shaped by that which is within. 
He may, indeed, fall below his ideal, but 
he can never rise above it. 

He who would be a thorough Chris- 
tian needs not only to comprehend the 
law of God, but to catch the spirit of 
the new life, its purity of motive, its 
high courage, its divine sense of honor, 



132 Holiness. 

its generous love, its joyous loyalty to 
God and the right, its lofty enthusiasm 
for all that is elevated and noble. Com- 
plete obedience carries the whole heart 
with it. He who scans the requirements 
of the Divine law with the keen eye and 
reluctant spirit of a miser paying a debt, 
which he would repudiate if he dared, 
can render no acceptable service. He 
who is always anxiously inquiring for 
the lowest terms upon which he may 
persuade himself that he is a Christian, 
might as well conclude, first as last, that 
it costs too much for him. 

But he who is gratefully, joyfully loyal 
to God with his whole heart needs to 
secure a full and accurate idea of prac- 
tical religion. When he can say sin- 
cerely with the Psalmist, I will delight 
myself in thy statutes ; I will not forget 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 133 

thy word — he needs to add the Psalm- 
ist's prayer : Blessed art thou, Lord; 
teach me thy statutes. He ought to 
remember alway the twofold exhorta- 
tion of the apostle, Grow in grace, and in 
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. Knowledge without grace 
is worth little. Grace without knowledge 
is shorn of its strength. Grace and 
knowledge make a strong and beautiful 
character, adorned with every virtue 
and enriched with all the elements of 
spiritual power. 

4. An unfaltering trust in God, and in 
the Lord Jesus Christ as a present and 
all-powerful Saviour. 

He who is striving with his whole 
heart to please God and do his duty, as 
he is led thereto by the Divine word, is 
in the path of life. I care not how little 



134 Holiness. 

peace, how little hope or joy, he may 
possess ; if the blackness of darkness is 
about him alway, if it seems to him 
that not a ray of light salutes his eager 
eyes, still let him keep steadily on his 
way. He is assuredly in the narrow 
path, and he will yet see the king in his 
beauty, and behold the land that is very 
far off. Ofttimes the seeming clouds 
which shut out the sun are but the dim- 
ness of our own eyes — not the darken- 
ing of the heavens. 

Nevertheless, darkness and doubt are 
not the normal condition of a child of 
God. Where the intellect clearly ap- 
prehends Divine truth, and the heart 
joyfully consents, and the whole soul 
accepts, believes, trusts, appropriates the 
promises, the natural result is peace and 
joy. And this present, clinging, appro- 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 135 

priating faith is the instrument whereby 
the believer maintains his hold on God 
and allies himself to eternal powers. 
This union is the strength of the Chris- 
tian. We read in the eleventh chapter 
of Hebrews the record of the achieve- 
ments of the worthies of old, and we 
find that their victories were all the 
triumphs of faith. By faith Abel offered 
unto God a more excellent sacrifice. By 
faith Enoch was translated, that he 
should not see death. By faith Noah 
builded the ark ; and Abraham, looking 
for a city which hath foundations ^ jour- 
neyed, not knowing whither he went; 
and Moses forsook Egypt, not fear- 
ing the wrath of the king ; and the 
long line of divine heroes subdued king- 
doms, wrought righteousness, obtained 
promises, stopped the mouths of lions y 



136 Holiness. 

and triumphed in the prison and the 
flame. 

The same faith is still needed to 
enable men to war against an evil world, 
breaking its snares, defying its enmity, 
and keeping themselves unspotted from 
its sins. The same faith is needed to 
resist the attacks of spiritual foes, and 
to maintain the watchfulness and self- 
mastery without which defeat is inev- 
itable. By this same faith is gained 
all spiritual growth, a warmer love, a 
brighter hope, a more steady trust, a 
swifter progress upward toward God 
and the light. Thus the soul, in the 
hour when Christ is very near, and 
the Spirit of God reveals the riches of 
grace, sees opening to its raptured vis- 
ion glorious possibilities of attainment ; 
when it perceives how small and feeble 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 137 

the past has been, compared with what 
may be ; when there comes an ardent 
desire for a more thorough conformity 
to the Divine will, a fuller joy, a clearer 
vision of things unseen, a yearning to 
ascend the heights and fathom the 
depths revealed, and know all the sweet- 
ness and the power of grace, all the 
fullness of God, then faith is the hand 
that seizes the infinite prize and grasps 
the treasures of heaven. 

Will the reader suffer a word of 
exhortation ? Grow. A healthy spirit- 
ual condition always tends to advance 
in divine things. Every one, indeed, 
who is born of God has attained an 
exalted state. He is the King's son. 
Let him not undervalue his birthrights. 
Still, his trial-life is not ended. He is 
in the midst of enemies. The devil 



138 Holiness. 

assails, the world allures, his own im- 
pulses and tendencies demand constant 
watchfulness and control. But every 
step of true progress brings new cour- 
age and skill for the warfare, a better 
access to God in prayer, a prompter vic- 
tory over temptation, a more steady 
peace, and a richer joy. Each advance 
gives a better preparation for accept- 
able service and for useful labors. Each 
degree of progress lessens the perils of 
the way, gives new assurance of final 
victory, and brings into clearer outline 
the image of God in the soul. Thus 
the earnest, faithful follower of Christ 
grows in grace, and, beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord, is changed 
into the same image from glory to glory. 
Assuredly, progress is exceedingly de- 
sirable. 



The Conclusion: An Appeal, 139 

Moreover, continuous growth is a 
condition of continuous religious en- 
joyment. 

We go into the orchard in May. A 
cloud of blossoms delights the eye and 
loads the air with fragrance, while the 
hum of bees fills the place with soft 
music. We inquire the age of the trees, 
and the response is, Forty years. But 
how much of the tree is forty years, or 
even thirty years, old ? Only a little 
of it, and that little is near the ground 
and buried deep in the center of the 
trunk. The myriad slender twigs, which 
stretch upward and around in every 
direction, grew last year. The oldest 
part of the tree is down near the root ; 
the newest is at the ends of the boughs. 

And the blossoms are all on the new 
wood, the very latest growth. There will 



140 Holiness. 

the fruit be found in October. There 
are no blossoms, there is no fruit, spring- 
ing from the dry bark of the trunk or 
of the great branches. Nor will the fra- 
grant blossoms of religious joy grow out 
of the dry bark of an old experience, 
through which the sap has ceased to 
circulate. When the tree ceases to 
grow there are no more blossoms, no 
more fruit. Thus, when the Christian 
ceases to grow, though he may not have 
wholly cast away his confidence and 
gone back to his sins, his religious en- 
joyment declines. Prayer, praise, the 
Divine word, the assembly of God's peo- 
ple, no longer delight him as they once 
did. He may still hold on his way after 
a fashion, and be really a child of God ; 
but he cannot retain the joyous emo- 
tions, the anointing oil of gladness, which 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 141 

belong to a vigorous spiritual life. He 
may be doing well, but it is certainly 
possible to do better. 

See what heights others have gained. 
The piety of the saintly Fletcher attracts 
the wondering eyes of all who love the 
deep things of God, and by it, being dead, 
he yet speaketh. How full of spiritual 
power was the daily life of Bramwell ! 

Other branches of God's Church pre- 
sent their witnesses of the fullness of 
grace. James Brainard Taylor thus de- 
scribes his own experience: "Memorable 
day ! The time and the place will never 
— no, never — be forgotten. I pleaded 
and wrestled with God ; and, praise to 
his name ! after six long years I found 
what I had so long and so earnestly 
sought. My earnest desire then was, as 
it had been ever since I professed religion 



142 Holiness. 

six years' before, that all love of the 
world might be destroyed, all selfishness 
extirpated, pride banished, unbelief re- 
moved, all idols dethroned, every thing 
hostile to holiness and opposed to the 
Divine will crucified, that holiness to the 
Lord might be engraved on my heart. 
I was enabled in my heart to say, ' Here, 
Lord, take me, take my whole soul, and 
seal me thine — thine now, and thine 
forever. If thou wilt, thou canst make 
me clean/ Then ensued such emotions 
as I never before experienced ; all was 
calm and tranquil, silent, solemn, and a 
heaven of love pervaded my whole soul. 
People may call this blessing by what 
name they please — faith of assurance, 
holiness, perfect love, sanctification. It 
makes no difference with me whether 
they give it a name or no name, it con- 



The Conclusion: An Appeal. 143 

tinues a blessed reality ; and, thanks to 
my heavenly Father ! it is my privilege 
to enjoy it. It is yours also." 

Dr. Edward Payson describes himself 
as a resident of Bunyan's land of Beu- 
lah, " where the sun always shines and 
the birds always sing." " The celestial 
city is full in my view, its glories beam 
upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors 
are wafted to me, its sounds strike my 
ears, and its spirit is breathed into 
my heart." He had long been passing 
through alternate sunshine and cloud ; 
but now all was light. He wonders that 
he had not sooner discovered his privi- 
lege, and exclaims, " O that I had known 
this twenty years ago !" 

We need not multiply examples. 
This is the will of God, even your sane- 
tification. Praise God for his precious, 



144 Holiness. 

present grace, and press on to what 
lies beyond. There remaineth yet very 
much land to be possessed, and the prom- 
ises cover every foot of its sacred soil. 
Like Caleb and Joshua, then, follow the 
Lord fully, and go up and possess the 
goodly heritage. 



THE END. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 



We have at last something new and original in the litera- 
ture of the temperance cause. The treatise is a learned one , 
but the style is spirited and simple, and so plain that a child 
may understand it. . . . Happy is that man who can bring 
to a moral enterprise the re-inforcement of fresh and vigorous 
ideas. This benediction must rest upon the head of our friend, 
Dr. J. T. Crane. He comes to the front of the temperance 
ranks, and offers valuable service at an hour when his new 
weapon is peculiarly adapted to the result sought. It is a 
fresh and original form of presenting an old and worn theme, 
and has been so successfully executed that it will force a 
hearing from those who, through familiarity with the topic, 
have ceased to be interested in it. The style is so lively and 
clear, and the volume is so full of entertaining as well as 
startling information, that our young people will be sure to 
read it if it is once placed in their hands. — Christian Ad- 
vocate* 

The appearance of this neat and timely volume will be 
hailed with great satisfaction by the friends of humanity. 
The question of intoxicants is discussed with a broader range 
than usual. — Methodist. 

" The Arts of Intoxication" — Dr. Crane has grappled 
with a mighty subject, and done it grandly. He gives the his- 
tory in outline of intoxication in ancient and modern times, 
and deals with the varied aspects of his theme as a philosopher, 
a philanthropist, and a Christian. He has crowded an im- 
mense amount of valuable information into the compass of a 



NOTICE — Arts of Intoxication. 

beautiful little volume. It is a work of decided merit. We 
commend it to all our readers, old and young, ministers and 
laymen. The facts and figures may seem astounding, but no 
charge of exaggeration will be sustained against the author. — 
Western Christian Advocate. 

Dr. Crane has placed the community under obligations for 
a volume of rare excellence, as a treatise upon all the 
means of intoxication and their effects. It is valuable as a 
text-book upon a subject of vital importance. — Neza Jersey 
Journal. 

We earnestly recommend it as a strong plea in behalf of 
temperance, and one which should be liberally circulated and 
read by members of temperance organizations, as supplying 
abundant arguments against the use and abuse of the bane of 
civilizat ion . — Sussex Register. 

We have read it from preface to conclusion with constantly 
increasing interest. The book is characterized by great breadth 
and range of thought, by fairness and thoroughness of argu- 
ment, and by an unusual amount of practical common sense. 
It is a work of no ordinary merit $ the most valuable contri- 
bution to temperance literature that has appeared for a long 
time. — Or a nge Journal. 

The results of the most careful scientific research are 
carefully stated, while the moral and religious conclusions 
are presented with great earnestness and power. The book 
is valuable, timely, thorough, and suggestive. — Newark 
Courier. 

Written in a very captivating style, that attracts and holds 
the reader's attention to the close. — Newark Journal. 

We consider this little volume a valuable addition to tem- 
perance literature, and worthy of a place in the library of 
every family. We most cheerfully commend it to the active 
advocates of the temperance reform as a most thorough dis- 



NOTICE — Arts of Intoxication. 

cussion of the subject, and one which will greatly aid them 
in their work. — Stephen B. Ransom, Most Worthy Pa- 
triarch of the National Division of the Sons of Tem~ 
perance. 

It is just the work needed at the present time, and it should 
have a large circulation. Dr. Crane's style is very attractive, 
rising at times to true eloquence. We commend it to all 
interested in the cause. — Boston Nation. 

No*addition to the literature of the temperance reform, so 
able, conclusive, - and impressive as this, has been made for a 
long time. The work will at once take its high place as an 
argument and plea, as a weapon of offense and a shield, and 
be among the foremost standard-bearers in the good cause. 
The evident research, the candor, the perspicuity, the scien- 
tific care, and the religious spirit that mark the work, make 
it peculiarly fitted to reach a class of minds that have hitherto 
withstood arguments and statements not so deftly or deco- 
rously presented. Let the work have wide circulation. — S. S. 
Times (Philadelphia.) 

Dr. Crane is an animated and forcible writer, and he has 
condensed the temperance argument within the compass of a 
small duodecimo in a very skillful and interesting manner. 
He is absolutely uncompromising, however, upon the subject 
of the use of stimulants. ... It will be admitted by all who 
read this little volume that Dr. Crane is an earnest and elo- 
quent advocate of total abstinence. We might even say that 
as an essayist he is the peer of Gough as a lecturer. — New 
York Evening Post. 

Of all the books written in the interest of temperance, we 
think of none better adapted to be generally useful. It gives 
a great deal of valuable information, drawn from a wide 
circle of reading. It is an able plea and argument, and a valu- 
able contribution to the science and conduct of life. — Newark 
Daily Advertiser. 



Dr. Orane on Popular Amusements. 

l6mo., pp. 209. Price, $1. 



THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS NEW WORK IS PUBLISHED. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

We doubt if the line can be more wisely drawn. Dr. 
Crane's work is done in his best style. There are logic, rhet- 
oric, philosophy, and now and then some lively " amuse- 
ment " in it. — Methodist Quarterly Review. 

In this volume there is a happy medium between a sour 
asceticism and free license of worldliness. We trust its wide 
circulation will prove that it is duly appreciated. — Christian 
Advocate. 

We commend this volume to the perusal of our ministers, 
and then urge them to see its free circulation among their 
people. — Ladies'' Repository. 

It is a timely production, and will do much to combat mis- 
chievous popular amusements, as well as to introduce a harm- 
less and beneficial class of recreations. — Methodist. 

Dr. Crane takes the only tenable ground respecting the 
amusements most generally practiced among fashionable so- 
ciety. Its cautions should be duly heeded. — Good Nezvs. 

It is a capital work : we wish it were in every family. Read- 
ers will find it written in an entertaining style, and we are 
very sure they cannot escape from the grip of its logic. We 
advise Pastors and leaders to send for it.— Nashville Christian 
Advocate. 

No more timely or valuable book has issued from the Meth- 
odist press in a long time. The author is a writer of rare 
ability and graceful style. Pastors can do no better service in 
their charges than to scatter it all around them. — Western 
Christian Advocate. 



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